<^*efS€-(IlMsiKtg; Kleitwre, FoitM, Qft^ Freedom foSft 0a3eft author of " Tb* Skeptics ol the Iteliao l^enalsssnce," " Tbe Skeptics of tbe French Renaissance," " Evenings Bilth tbe Skeptics," etc. ENLARGED HE16SUE LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. I'ATERNOSrER SQUARE 1894 mmi^ r, 5^X '|"°;T>^^ \k.-'^, ^ . -~~^<~. ,11, h .;^. r— y'^ J} i?^^4,^<^^;/c./:?=^A > iMilC. ^^,fS = .-?i J\^ "' -^j':V--'K'A /\. 11^0 IS "^l^inyf Cornell University Library PR5115.075V51894 Verse-musings on nature, faith, and free 3 1924 013 531 599 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013531599 VERSE-MUSINGS ON NATURE, FAITH, AND FREEDOM ^e.rge-'Slugim fl&.\xdrG, ¥m\^, &n(i Wreedoco. jo^n (pw&n Autbop of " The Skeptics of tbe Italian Henalssance," " The Skeptics of the French Renaissance," " Evenings mltb the Skeptics," etc. ENLARGED REISSUE LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1894 First Edition 1889. Enlarged Reissue - - 1894. 'The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) CONTENTS. I.— NATURE. PAGE Under the Aspens in June... ... ... ... 3 To A Young House-Martin picked up Dead under ITS Nest in the Middle of November ... 7 Nature's Unselfconsciousness ... ... ... 12 The Dying Sycamore Leaf ... ... ... 14 "A Primrose by a River's Brim" ... ... ... 17 To a New-budded Beech Tree ... ... ... 21 The Thrush and the Snow — A Tragedy of Nature 25 A Pantheistic Reverie ... ... ... ... 28 The Rosarian to a New and Beautiful Seedling Rose ... ... ... ... ... ... 30 The Beech and the Woodbine — A Parable ... 33 The Song of the Roses ... ... ... ... 37 Pan is not Dead ... ... ... ... 44 The Song of the Water-Lily ... ... ... 54 Ode to the Skylark ... ... ... ... 59 To A Snowdrop ... .. ... ... ... 68 The New Snow and the Old ... ... ... 71 CONTENTS. PAGE A Tree's Dream of Another World ... ... 73 The Flower and the Frost ... ... ... 75 The Rosarian's Return to his Rosery after a Visit to London on the Occasion of a Public Pageant 77 The Spider's Web ... ... ... ... ... 79 The Snow and the Rime; or, the Artistic Adorn- ment of Nature ... ... ... ... 81 The Nightingale and the Frog ... ... 84 The Stars ... ... ... ... ... ... 87 Physical v. Mental Life ... ... ... 89 To MY Cat "Muff" ... ... ... ... gi Epitaph on "Muff" ... ... ... ... 94 A November Bird Chorus ... ... ... ... 96 The Aged Blind Bird ... ... ... ... 100 To a Rose torn from its Parent Tree by a July Hail-Shower ... ... ... ... ... 104 Ode to Darkness ... ... .. ... 107 November Winds ... ... ... ... ... no A Cloud Invocation ... ... ... ... 114 The Aspen Leaves to the Snowstorm ... ... n6 To the West Wind ... ... ... ... ng Nature's Muffled Voices ... ... ... ... 120 Flower Thoughts The Elegy of the Rose Leaves Under the Snow "He Sung Hisself to Death" — A Reminiscence of a London Court Ebb and Flow ... ... ... ... ... 142 The Death of the Old Year .. .. ... 144 Newness of Life 123 129 131 133 147 CONTENTS. vii IL— FAITH. The Progress of Truth On defining God The Scope of Hdman Energies What is Religion? Where IS Religion ? The Pious Hindu's Path of Perfection Life and Thought ... Vita Brevis, ars Longa Virtue, Past and Present ... Life, and Death, and Truth ... To Plotinos on his Definition of Revelation The Home of Human Souls (i.) The Home of Human Souls (ii.) Life and Love ... The Wings of Hope The Eternity of Truth The Song of the Euripidean Deities On Matthew Arnold's Definition of Deity — " Some- thing that makes for Righteousness" ... 217 Is Life worth Living? — A Query solved by Ques- tions ... ... ... ■•• •■• ••■ 219 On the Death of a Young and only Child ... 221 Human Plans v. Human Issues ... ... ... 224 Search and Marvel ... ... .■■ ■■ 227 Future Life— A Reverie and an Experiment ... 229 Life and Death ... ... ••• ■•• 233 Ode to Serenity ... ... •.• ■■• ■•• 235 Human Ties ... ... ••• ■•• ■•■ 238 PAGE 162 163 I6S 167 169 171 181 189 193 200 206 210 213 215 vm CONTENTS. PAGE What is Faith? ... ... ... ... ... 241 The Groan of Creation ... ... ... 243 Heaven's Silent Tent ... ... ... ... 261 III.— FREEDOM. Ode to Nemesis ... ... ... ... ... 267 Thought and Sorrow ... ... ... ... 271 Fate and Man ... ... ... ... ... 274 Thought and Life ... ... ... ... 275 Thought and Love... ... ... ... ... 277 Life and Pain ... ... ... ... ... 278 The Beginnings of Life. What are they Like? ... 281 Philo's Definition of Laughter ... ... 283 Life — An Image Emblem ... ... ... ... 286 A Question and Answer ... ... ... 288 Dogma-Method ... ... ... ... ... 291 Success and Failure ... ... ... ... 293 The Agnostic's Apology ... ... ... ... 295 "Take it for Granted;" ok, the Method of the Unidead ... ... ... ... ... 298 On a Volume of Pomponazzi's Works, a.d. 1497 ... 300 Despair... ... ... ... ... ... 303 On Giordano Bruno's FSte ... ... ... 305 The Dream of Life ... ... ... ... 307 To Boccaccio's " Decameron " ... ... ... 308 On George Eliot's Works and Life ... ... 309 To Justus Lipsius ... ... ... ... ... 3H CONTENTS. IX AGE At Dr. C. Beard's Grave ... ... ... ... 312 Plato's Ideal Matrimony ... ... ... 313 The Thinker to his Headache ... ... ... 316 The Devout Skeptic's Dying Prayer ... ... 318 Lines on George Eliot ... ... ... ... 320 The Earnest Truth-Seeker to his Brain ... 321 f NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY VERSE. The Spirit of Chivalry ... ... ... •325 La Loi D'amour ... ... ... ... 329 The Crusader's Last Sacrament . . ... ••. 333 The Religion of Science, or the Self-Sacrifice of Dr. Rabbeth ... ... ... .. 337 Legend of St. Knighton's Chapel and Keive near Tintagel ... ... .. .■■ .•■ 343 The Legend of St. Gowan's Bell ... ... 348 " Preparing for HER Berrin' " ... .. ... 351 NATURE UNDER THE ASPENS IN JUNE. 'Neath the trembling rustling shade, By the quivering aspens made, Supine on the lawn I lie Drawing from the green-fleck'd sky Dreamy fancies in attune With the drowsy warmth of June. Softened is the noontide sheen, By your shivering cloudlets green, Quickened seems the turf below With flickering fretwork — shade and glow — A living, tesselated floor Forming, changing evermore — Blue sky above, green earth beneath With waving festoons ye enwreath ; Filling the sun-paled azure air With flashing gems and emeralds rare. While on the green' earth-floor ye trace — Adapting sombre hues to place — In shadows darkling as they move The glories of the heaven above. Like crisp waves on sunlit seas Ruffled by the summer breeze, UNDER THE ASPENS IN JUNE. So your surface gently fretted By soft zephyrs close besetted, Breaks in myriad efflorescence (In the wind's decrease and crescence), Of swift-changing light and greenness, Glancing with a wild unseenness. Each bright leaf in swift gyrations Flashing brilliant coruscations As it glistens sunward turning And an instant's sunlight burning. One small unit in the mazy Dance of foliage bright or hazy, On its flexile stem revolving By its frenzied twirl resolving Every kind of leafy antic, As if, sun-struck, it were frantic. Anon your aspen storm is lull'd. And your green wavelets' tints are dull'd ; Drooping hang your leaves all mute, From the fretful wind's pursuit : Still'd, until their rustling high Waning as about to die. Sounds but as a maiden's sigh When her lover comes not nigh. Transient lull ! new energy Soon throbs through each aspen tree. Stalk and stem and leaf now quiver With a crisp and crackling shiver, Like the rain drops in a river, UNDER THE ASPENS IN JUNE. Now again is heard your roar As of waves upon the shore — Rising, falling, in a sinuous Cadence, as the wind continuous Plays among your leaves and branches With its wayward lawless franchise ; While to each degree of fluttering Follows its own key of muttering, Loud or soft, or deep or shrill. Till once more the wind grows still ; And again the lull succeeds Each wind-gust in sequence breeds. Thus to every transient impulse, As the wind with loud or dim pulse 'Mid your mobile leafy surges Its eccentric courses urges. Ye respond with eager utterance Bristling tones, or hushfed mutterance. Like the ^lEolian sentient harp-string. Which the breeze makes flat or sharp sing, So in mingled tones and keys, Sounds your quire of voiced-leaf trees As though each leaf were a tongue Agile, flexile, deftly hung. Adding by its single tone To the whole grand unison. Aspens fair and mobile, ye Whispered thought convey to me. As ye yield to sun and wind. As ye all your pleasure find, UNDER THE ASPENS IN JUNE. In response with vivid senses To sweet Nature's influences : — So to Nature would I give, Every sense by which I live, Sympathetic with each mood. Seeming ill or real good ; Joining Nature's loving union, Merged and lost in her communion, One unit 'mid the myriad throng, Myriad-tongued that swell her song. ( 7 ) TO A YOUNG HOUSE-MARTIN PICKED UP DEAD UNDER ITS NEST IN THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER. ' Poor half-fledged morsel of mortality, Reft of thy nascent frail vitality, Born all too late ; Born when the summer sun had ceased its shining. Born when the year's life-forces were declining, Into a cold world ushered unrepining. Hapless, untimely fate ! Warm'd into hfe when spent the winged prey, For thy race fitted through each sun-glad day Its food to give. Void was the cold September air, and dumb Of all the summer music buzz and hum, Which the rathe first-born of thy nest bade come, Pursue, enjoy, and live. Born when thy mates already wings were pruning, Born when loud marshall-calls they piped attuning For the far South ; TO A YOUNG HOUSE-MARTIN. Instinct's almighty impulse through them thrilling, And with its mastery their bosoms filling, Little they reck'd the deprecating trilhng Of thy baby-mouth. Abandoned by thy parents, playmates, all Unheeding of thy tender nestling-call. Thou diedst alone ; Still cowering in thy cold forsaken nest. Still for thy parents looking sore distress'd, To come as heretofore when hunger press'd They heard thy plaining tone. Ah ! who thy anguish may avail to tell. So late emerged from the parent shell, Then reft of care ? Who may record thy pangs, so fondly nursed. Then left to die of hunger, cold, and thirst. Who tell the spasm when thy small heart burst With want and sad despair ? What boots the question what thy lot had been, Hadst thou the earlier sun of August seen ? How swift thy flight ? If thou in beauty hadst thy mates excell'd. If high thy shape and plumage they had held. Or if of thine own brood all e'er unshelled, Had keenest been thy sight ? Emblem dead bird art thou of what we find Through Nature's realms, nor rare among mankind Born all too late TO A YOUNG HOUSE-MARTIN. Are ofltimes men who tardy slink to life, All spent the wealth with which their lot were rife In earlier times, and unavailing strife And death is now their fate. Of births abortive, destinies unripe, Of Nature's thwarted works and aims, sad type, Alas, thou art ! Why grace and beauty does she oft bestow — As on thy frame she made these feathers grow — And then destroy them with a sudden blow And reckless ruthless heart ? But while through Nature we trace everywhere Failure, frustration, careful lack of care And heedful heedlessness — "What matters?" asks some thinker with insistence, " For all things gendered there is not subsistence 'Tis but the law of struggle of existence. Than that no more no less. What recks one nestling 'mong the myriad brood In summer hatch'd, matured on summer food, Then eager wings Outstretching shared their elders' autumn flight. And now in southern climes taste new delight. Where days are ever warm and sunshine bright, All birds to music stings ? " Had this plea satisfied thy yearning heart. When boding woe thou saw'st thy mates depart, O birdling dead ? TO A YOUNG HOUSE-MARTIN. Or had it soothed thy pangs of hunger keen, Or warmed thy ice-cold frame, if thou hadst been Made conscious what such reasoning might mean And following its thread ? Will thy wing'd mates, in the first glow of spring Returning, when the cuckoo 'gins to sing, To yonder eave. Bethink them of the nestling left forlorn, Of love and warmth and life untimely shorn. Because, unwitting, it was too late born ; And for thee will they grieve ? On thy bare frame, half-fledg'd and weather blench'd. Thy tender plumage, ruffled and dew-drench'd, Smoothly I lie ; Then underneath the laurel's shade I rake A clearing 'mid the mould'ring leaves ; so make Thy grave, and bury thee where thou may'st take Thy rest eternally. And those who list may solve the curious quest, Whether an early death like thine were best Or long bird-life ; Thy race's chequered lot of joy and care, Now flitting through the warm food-laden air, Now pining for that warmth and food are rare, A lot with trial rife. TO A YOUNG HOUSE-MARTIN. Let it suffice : 'tis with impartial mood Incurious Nature lots her ill or good. She portions death To weaklings ere they leave the parent nest, While those with strength inborn to bear life's test With life endues, nor knows she which is best Nor judgment hazardeth. ( 12 ) NATURE'S UNSELFCONSCIOUSNESS. Hath the rose, when it blows, Any sense of its worth ? Does it know its rich glow As a fair thing of earth ? When its hue gleams to view. Does it feel that it gives Added brightness and light To the spot where it lives ? When its scent seeks sweet vent Through the warm summer air, Does it deem — " from me stream Airy sweets past compare ? " Says the sun, " 'Tis well done. Light and heat I shed round, Making life strong and rife Through the worlds to me bound ? " Thinks the star, " From afar I diffuse a mild light, One small beam in the gleam Of the star-teeming night ? " NATURE'S UNSELFCONSCIOVSNESS. 13 Thrills the lark, when the dark From morn's brow disappears, With the thought : " How joy-fraught Sounds my song in men's ears ! " Deems the vine, when sunshine Mellows slowly its fruit, That its juice will induce Strength for man's life-pursuit ? Knows the corn, when 'tis shorn, 'Tis of use to mankind ; Or that good is the food Which the harvest sheaves bind ? Thinks the shower, " My downpour Will all green life revive. Thanks I meed from all seed My heaven drops make alive. Nature brings her fair things And her useful to man. All untaught to take thought, Use or beauty to scan. So must we, from self free, Goodly use yield to men ; Our best fee, as said He, " Hope for nothing again." ( 14 ) THE DYING SYCAMORE LEAF. Sere are the leaves on the sycamore tree, In death's livery clad they are mournful to see, Their hoarse, dying rustle is vocal to me. For the concert of leaves with insight I hear, Whether green they laugh in the sunshine, or sere They plaintively moan in the winter-blast drear. So I to the sycamore tree drew nigh, To catch, as I could, the last sad sigh Of the sick leaves pale' and ready to die. In the thousandfold rustle of sigh and groan — For a sigh hath each leaf and a voice of its own. Of one leaf I marked the feeble tone. From the mother tree-twig it loosely hung, By a half-severed stalk, while it helplessly swung In the ice-wind, and this was the dirge it sung : " What fruit hath my life since it first began, When I thrill'd to the sap through my veins that ran. What use to myself, or to beast, or man ? THE DYING SYCAMORE LEAF. 15 " I have bask'd in the sun, and bath'd in the shower, Have added my mite to our mother's green bower — The use which of le^-ves is the commonest dower. " Yet while on my one-summer life I muse. Small occasions of service I need not refuse To count, or forget, once my use was abuse. " In a thunder shower, a gipsy child, Her swarthy locks bare, and dark eyes gleaming wild. Came beneath me for shelter ; she found it, and smiled. " From her head I warded rain-drops a score, I counted them not, they might have been more. Thus I help'd carve the smile that her red lips wore. "To things living one service besides I paid, I furnished a lamb that beneath me was laid On a hot summer day, three square inches of shade. " Such is my life record of service or use, Against which must be placed an unwilling misuse Of my powers. For a murd'rer broke loose " From his captors, hid in our cover green. Our foliage that wretch and his due came between, And his pale, cruel face, I aided to screen. " Is the life worth having that can but plead, Such meagre achievement of worthy deed ? One might almost as well be a noxious weed. 1 6 THE DYING SYCAMORE LEAF, " Must shelter and shade be so blended with ill, That the child and the lamb with content we fill By means which give safety to fiends who kill ? " Is this the sole end of the hopes I nursed, When to the May sunshine I thrill'd at first, And from the brown womb of my calyx burst ? " More it would have said, but the autumn blast, The leaf-stalk tore from the twig at last, And 'mong its dead comrades the leaf down cast. Then, mused I : " This leaf of a tree well leaved — Say one of ten thousand— quite causelessly grieved, Not all vain was its life, as it sadly conceived. To make a child's lips bud forth in a smile, The footsteps of law from their course to beguile. And a lamb to shield from the sun for a while. Form a life-score commingled of good and ill, A Type we discern — look wherever we will The chequered lot, leaves, ay, and men fulfil." ( 17 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (I.). "A PRIMROSE BY A RIVER'S BRIM." Quotation. " A PRIMROSE by a river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." * * « « * « Comment. Say, then, mysterious Sense Of Beauty, why or whence This primrose by a river's brim Should more than primrose be " to him." Thy insight all divine. Wake to each outward sign, Of fairest soul indued in sheath Of beauty form, part hid beneath * Wordsworth, " Peter Bell," part ii. "A PRIMROSE BY A RIVER'S BRIM." Its lustre, quick descries (Truth hid from earthher eyes), With more than common glory glows, A picturesquely placed primrose. 4- Her cup of dimmed gold, That in its depths doth hold An orange cuplet, dainty small, Part of her splendour is, not all. 5- Lighting the moss-bank green. With her pale yellow sheen. She sits, a queen, gold-clad, alone Upon her cushioned emerald throne 6. As when the star of eve Doth from the sun receive Its dying rays, and with their light Shines all supreme — sole queen of night. 7- Or when the pale moonfills A calm night, and distils Her silvery sheen on "wood and stream, Making the earth a fairy dream. "A PRIMROSE BY A RIVER'S BRIM." 19 Or when on some fair brow A brilliant doth endow With added lustre, the impress Of the whole visage's loveliness ; 9- So round her each sweet thing Doth its own glory bring To deck her beauty, and to throw About her splendour ampler glow. Above, the sun of May Doth with a warmer ray Expand her petals, and her gold With purer brilliancy unfold. The trees above her head Their roots give for her bed, While each new-budded leaf springs forth. Homage to yield to her dear worth. The river at her feet Doth give her music sweet, And on its limpid bosom trace — As on a lover's heart — her face. "A PRIMROSE BY A RIVER'S BRIM." 13- With varied, gladsome glee, The birds in every tree Do celebrate her charms, and sing The praises of this queen of spring. 14. Sweet symbol too is she. Of Truth and Modesty, Of dainty grace, refinement rare, Of all things choice and good and fair. 15- Since, like her, do all these The Sense of Beauty please ; And all thrive best in far remove From the loud stir and dust men love. 16. Thus with a halo crowned Of mingling beauties round, A concentrated glory glows From this lone river-side Primrose. 17- How blind then must he be Who only this can see — A primrose yellow, round in rim, Growing hard by a river's brim. ( 21 ) TO A NEW-BUDDED BEECH TREE. I GREET thee, fair tree, All enraptured I see Once more thou art draped in thy spring bravery. At thy toilet I've been Daily watching, and seen By degrees thy investure in green gold sheen. 3- Each stem every day Greener shoots did array. Till each bud-bestrung twig seemed an emerald spray. 4- Then in clouds of pale green, Brown-shaded between, Thy round masses of tender new foliage were seen. i TO A NEW-BUDDED BEECH TREE. 5- Now thy toilet is done, Thy spring mantle put on, And thou gleam'st in green glory before the May sun. 6. Yet fain would I know. So I prythee me show, Why thus' thou art draped in thy tender green glow. 7- Then the green beech tree, Whispered softly to me, As the wind stirr'd its leaves in a hush'd melody — 8. " In green am I dress'd, So it may be confess'd, I match with the earth in her new vernal vest. 9- " I would raise a new fire, Green and gold — so that nigher I may lift my young shoots to the sun their sire. " To my leaves I give birth, They may thus prove their worth. Giving glory and shade to this spot of fair earth. TO A NEW-BUDDED BEECH TREE. 23 " Million-fold my young mast I produce, they may cast Them around, and grow trees when my own term is past. " Thus Nature's own will I try to fulfil. My summer work doing as I can well or ill." 13. Then said I to the beech, " Wholesome truth thou dost teach, But what of thy winter role, tell, I beseech. 14. " Darker daily will grow These bright leaves, till they show By fading and falling the near frost and snow. 15- " Then thy branches, I ween. Will all naked be seen. As they were ere thou donnest this robe of pale green." 16. Then the tree with a sigh. As the wind rustled by : " Ah, I know these fair leaves are now born but to die. 24 TO A NEW-BUDDED BEECH TREE. 17- " Generations before Leaves and fruit have I bore, Which the wild winter wind from my branches have tore. " Ah, who may essay. The sense to convey. The pain and privation of death and decay. 19. " But then I well knew. E'en when winter winds blew, That foliage once faded must give place to new. " Of tree-Kfe 'tis the norm. Of its growth the due form. That its verdure must yield to the wintry storm." More the tree would have said. But the wind that had sped Its tongue-leaves was now still, and they hung as if dead. ( 25 ) THE THRUSH AND THE SNOW. A TRAGEDY OF NATURE. Thrill'd by the pricks and stings of spring. Two thrushes were stirr'd to mate, nest, and sing In the cold bleak March and its frosty air, For summer's delights they began to prepare The leaf-shielded fork of a laurel tree. Their nest foundation they chose to be. There, careless of March and its icy wind. Their wreathbd home with skill they entwined. When built they clay-wattled their nest in a form Which well might withstand a late winter storm. Blithe work and blithe singing went hand-in-hand, In love's harmony joined as a holy band. At length — the nest built — its clay concave round Gleamed with eggs, black-speck'd on a bright blue ground. Then with young life the mother herself addressed, To fill her warm home and her yearning breast. 26 THE THRUSH AND THE SNOW. She sat on her eggs while her mate on a tree Of sunshine, home, love, sang in choice melody. She brooded, he sang, till one cold bleak day Four thrushlings appeared on the nest-floor of clay. While the cold March waned, and its east wind blew, The callow nestlings to fledged birds grew. Now with hopes and aspirings tremulous, sweet, The parent birds' hearts began to beat. Of summer they dream'd, its warmth and its food. Its joy and its sunshine maturing their brood. Alas ! the March wind with more frost congealed. Hurled a pitiless snowstorm on garden and field. From the laurel-bush top hurtled down a snow crush. Cold, wet, overwhelming the nest of the thrush. Scarce 'scaped the mother — she flew away. Loudly shrieking her terror and hapless dismay. Beneath their snow-shroud, white, frozen and deep. The new-fledged thrushlings were chill'd to death-sleep. Food lacking, heart-hungered, the mother bird Soon the fate of her nestlings so dear incurr'd. But a few more lone days survived her mate. When by cold, grief, and hunger he shared a like fate. THE THRUSH AND THE SNOW. 27 But ere he followed the dear ones gone, Their fate and his own he thus mused upon : " No world is this," sigh'd the dying bird, " To obey Nature's impulse within us stirr'd. " Nature prescribes, it would oft seem in hate, A poisoned potion — untimely fate. " Callow nestlings and hopes — who dare it gainsay — Of the late winter storm become often the prey ? " 'Twere a seemlier world wherein bird-life might grow Were it freer from blighting frosts and snow. " A seemlier world were the promptful breath Of Nature, Love, Song not the presage of death.'' ( 28 ) A PANTHEISTIC REVERIE. Brooklets in the river, Rivers in the ocean, Merge and lose their separate being With swift impulsive motion. Dewdrops — cold's pearl issue — Yield their chill-bound splendour. To the sun's warm morning mist Their parted lives surrender. To the sun-warm'd air Flowers resign their sweetness, In a larger diffused being. Finding their completeness. Trees jut forth their shoots With spring-stirr'd propension, Only content when they have reached Their nature's full extension. Leaves of autumn fall. Nor fear decay's pollution. Commingling with their comrades dead In happy dissolution. A PANTHEISTIC REVERIE. 29 Time's swift moments rush To join the myriads past, Eager into its boundless store Their transient being to cast. Nature's countless births, Boundless in their ranging. Into other forms and beings Are ever, ever changing. Nature forces all To each other tending. Impulse give to ampler force With its action blending. So man's single being To its destiny urging, May its fitting issue find In the All-Being merging. 30 THE ROSAKIAN TO A NEW THE RO SARI AN TO A NEW AND BE A UTIFUL SEEDLING ROSE. All welcome ! fresh-created flower, Rejoicing in the new-born dower Of beauteous form and scent and hue, As "grand" a rose as ever grew ; Distinct from thy fair sisterhood, Yet member of their fairy brood. Yet am I puzzled sore to dwell Upon thy birth ; nor can I tell. With all my reason, how or why Thou cam'st thus forth to glad my eye. Say, wert thou in Creation's plan. Inventoried ere it began ? Were all thy stages then preknown — That after aeons of time had flown, I blindly rose-seed must have sown. And thou therefrom must needs have grown ? Or did chance with her wayward spell Thy being by accident impel ? AND BEAVUFVL ROSE. 31 Born in the dark environment, Where Nature oft veils her intent ; In the complexity of forces, Which of live beings and powers the source is. Thou gleamest forth as doth a star From midnight darkness, deep and far, Small kosmos by a chaos gendered. And for earth's added glory tendered ; Sweet melody resounding, free From varied perplexed harmony, A sudden flash of beauteous hue From out of Nature's boundless " blue," An utterance clear, trumpet-blown. From many a whispered undertone, A peaceful birth with beauty rife From Nature's elemental strife. But born, as thou art thus, of Law, Which no man ever searched or saw, Scarce likely is it I could trace Thy parentage of form and face. Wholly unlike thy nearest kin, My greater wonder thou dost win ; Remote resemblance thou dost bear Unto a rose of beauty rare. But seed of which I've never sown, Nor parent stock have ever grown. But dearer art thou to my heart. For that I claim so small a part 32 TO A NEW AND BEAUTIFUL ROSE. By direct foresight, aim, intent In thy production. Thou seem'st sent To tell how poor a thing is man, N ature's deep mysteries to scan ; Thy being's cause scarce am I more Than he who finds it on the shore. Hath caused the shell ne'er seen before. Or he who casts the dice, nor knows What end shall follow his blind throws. Fair symbol thou art of the power — Creation's first Almightiest dower, Which Nature's constant brooding brings To fairest birth the fairest things ; Flashing to light beings hid from view. And from old methods products new. Like Inspiration's lightening beam, Which on the thinker's mind doth gleam Spontaneously, nor whence nor why Can he its origin descry ; Clear sign in brief art thou to me Of Heaven's all-ruling deity Embodied in earth-mystery. Rare flotsam on the shoreless ocean Of Nature, God, Space, Time, Life, Motion. ( 33 ) THE BEECH AND THE WOODBINE. A PARABLE. I. Said a young sapling beech in a nobleman's park, " I mean on tree-records to leave my mark. " Herewith I resolve : — 'Tis my noble fate — My true place among trees, that I should become great. 3- " The tree from whose shelled 'mast' I awoke To life, was as great as some storied oak ; 4- '" It spread itself forth, and a wide circuit made In winter of boughs, and in summer of shade. 5- " So, like my ancestral tree, must I Become massive in bulk, and broad, and high.'' # » * * # D 34 THE BEECH AND THE WOODBINE. 6. But a few summers only had clothed with green The beech, that its silver bark scarce was seen, 7- When a woodbine sprang from the self-same ground, And her arms his silver trunk clasped around With a loving sigh. " Fair tree," said she, " My guide and support thou wert meant to be ; 9- " 'Tis Nature's law that the slender and weak In robuster companions their strength should seek." Nothing loath was the beech ; it could do him no wrong, And the clasp of the weak proved the strength of the strong. From east to westward — the track of the sun, Her climbing circuit the woodbine begun, Claspingly closer, clung like a leech, Each curling twig round the smooth grey beech THE BEECH AND THE WOODBINE. 35 13- And every year, as the woodbine grew, Came young shootlets and flowers for ever new. 14. And the beech rejoiced in her close caress. And her shoots and her flowers was minded to bless. IS- It enhanced the green wealth of his summer dower When his branches were wreathed with the woodbine flower ; 16. And the nectarous perfume the flowers distilled Its warm summer shade with sweetness filled. 17- But, alas ! with years, as the tree grew high^. The woodbine's embrace became fatally nigher, 18. Like other affectionate natures she proved How tenacious their clasp who once truly have loved. 19. Then the silver trunk could no longer distend. Nor in wider sweep could the branches extend. 36 THE BEECH AND THE WOODBINE. His sap found no room for its vernal ascent, And his impulse of growth was thus speedily spent. Thus the beech became stunted, and dwarfed, and small. Quite unlike all his race, wide-spreading and tall. Then it plaintively sighed, " This, then, is the fate Of my youthful dream-wish to be famous and great ; 23- " To the woodbine's embrace I, alas, am a prey. My ardours of youth she has clasped away. 24. " I might have grown famous — with such birth-dowers : Of caressings I die, and enwreathings of flowers " ( 37 ) THE SONG OF THE ROSES. What song is that which the Roses sing, When summer's noon follows the morn of spring ? What music of form, hue and scent so fair. Is that which they yield to the warm June air ? Give ear, mortals, and ye shall learn — If your hearing be subtle and skilled to discern — The choral song which the Roses sing, When summer's noon follows the dawn of spring. ^ * Hi % * " We come to earth — pure spirits that roam From the realm wherein Beauty hath her home. Wherein things that are fair and of treasured worth, Are conceived and plann'd ere produced on earth ; Where beings that here mere abstractions seem. With no more consistence than hath a dream. By spirit senses are known and scann'd — As the craftsman's work by the craftsman's hand — In their concrete splendour — spirit real The glory consummate of the Ideal. 38 THE SONG OF THE SOSES, " Where typal forms of celestial birth, Of whatever is choicest and best on earth, Retain their heaven-born glory and glow, The fairest souls of fair bodies below ; Where germs of Beauty and Goodness gain The amplest dimensions they can attain Where death, nor obstruction, nor cause malign Can arrest a growth spontaneous, divine ; Where Ideal Roses of ideal hue. Fairer than mortals ever knew Bloom under skies of ideal blue. " There Beauty maintains an enduring reign, Fair life is fearless of death or pain. And Virtue by Evil is ever unslain ; There the Good and the Fair, recking nothing of change, To death and decay are for ever strange — Immortal entities ! Touch of time Ne'er can taint their eternity sublime. " Ah ! could mere mortals but see unfurled. The glories of that pure ideal world. Could they catch were it only a passing glance At the realm of Beauty and fair Romance, Where ;^eauty herself— the sole well spring Of all that is fair in each beauteous thing — Reigns ever enthroned o'er the ideal race. The fore-types of Loveliness, Truth, and Grace ; A dominion conterminous with aught fair. In earth or sky, or the infinite air. THE SONG OF THE ROSES. 39 And during in time where time cannot extend, To aeons of ages without end. " Could they note of that world, serenely fair. How its scenes and objects harmoniously share Like beauteous attributes. How its air, Bright and translucent, is fitted to show Whatever is goodly with added glow. How its ideal landscapes ever shine, Bathfed in light transcendent, divine ; Each typical scene in loveliness drest Surpassing in splendour all the rest. Fitting environments of life With wonder and tender beauty rife ; Where Ideal birds on Ideal trees Sing Ideal melodies to the breeze ; Where spirit Flowers make glorious and gay, All gardens and fields with celestial array. " Could mortals see heaven's Roses blow With a lustre earth Roses can never know ; Faultless blooms, each petal its place Filling with singular matchless grace — Adding by symmetry, form, and hue. To the swelling splendour in which it grew. Forming with others like tinted and shaped. The circling halos each flower that draped — The whole a wonderment and delight. Too ravishing fair for human sight. 40 THE SONG OF THE ROSES. " Could men but see spirit Roses free From checks that stunt our maturity ; From the winter wind's cruelly blasting breath, That bears on its pinions harsh threats of death ; From the smiting chill of the thunder shower, The succulence dank of the long downpour ; From the festering heat of a hot July, When the sun is ablaze in the cloudless sky ; From the trying changes of night and morn, Of joyous summer to winter forlorn ; From all the untoward restriction and strife, That stifles for Roses their amplest life ; From causes that mar their beauty fair, And its fullest development impair ? " Then, what a Rose vision passing bright, Were heaven's ideal Rosery, infinite ; Wherein all conceivable forms and hues, Which infinite means and conditions could choose— The absolute, inexhaustible store, Of rose possibiUties — plann'd before In Beauty's mind ere brought into hght. With her form and comeliness bedight. As each day's sun is born of the star-teeming night. " There in the Rose's ideal home, Of her types the myriad-paged tome, The human rosarian might haply find The " type " of the " sport " that delights his mind ; There might he discern in form, scent, and hue. THE SONG OF THE ROSES. ^\ The Rose which to earth seems wholly new ; There the ideal origin he might trace, Of its shapeliness, tint, its beauty and grace ; There see its matured and perfect state, ' Which he cannot on earth hope to emulate ; The growth not of chance, but of Beauty's law And, like Beauty herself, without let or flaw. ***** " Restrained, alas ! in outline and shape, Material beings, base matter we ape ; Each petal's form, each rosebloom's globe. Are material vestments in which we robe. We cannot bud, and blow, and expand. Like Ideal Blooms in an Ideal land, Bestirr'd alone by Beauty's fire, Like Beauty herself to grow and aspire. Till attainment be swallowed of endless desire. ***** " Small marvel, thus stunted, we "long and pine. For our native home in that realm divine ; That we muse on that world where Roses fair — Whose germ, form, and hue, we remotely share. Are matched with us beyond compare. That, striving with hindrances petty and mean, We dream of that world, and its life serene. « * * * * " In the autumn drear, the wintry night. In the summer's blaze or the spring's chill blight. Ah ! then our thoughts and yearnings tend To the spirit-world whence Roses descend. 42 THE SONG OF THE ROSES. We love to dream of its stormless skies, Of days whose sunlight never dies ; Of changeless conditions of life and growth, Of surroundings to Roses never wroth. Of scenes ever bathed — as a tranquil sea, In a never-abating serenity. We contrast surroundings wrathful and bare With ethereal perfection we cannot share ; And when we muse on rose-loveliness there. Sometimes we weep that we are not inore fair. » # * * * " We share, too, the feeling of death and decay. The earthward sensation of fading away — The relaxing of petals when overblown, And their carcasses fair on the lawn are strewn ; The worm in the bud, the foul insect-blight, Which destroys still further our feeble might. All are contrasts that make us mourn and sigh For the lot of Ideal Roses on high. Nothing they know of languor or pain. In eternal youth they eternally reign ; They fear not earth's seasons, or time's changing course. They perennially glow with perennial force ; Beauty's fair offspring they ever share The changeless being of their mother fair. " Meanwhile, as we can we continue to grow, To strike our roots, to bud, and to blow ; For our office it is to discover to men. To suggest to their earth-bom senses and ken, THE SONG OF THE ROSES. 43 The glories of that hidden sphere, Where Ideal growths in full splendour appear ; To bid them remember that Roses of earth, However exalted men deem their worth. Are not Roses of heavenly and ideal birth ; To hft their minds, and, perchance, desire By all forms of Beauty to climb still higher. That for her true self they at last may aspire. « » * • » " Such is the duty we Roses perform, When we smile in the sun or shrink in the stof m. This the office of all fair things on earth. To 'mind men of Beauty's fair home and her birth." » » • * • This is the song the Roses sing. When summer's noon follows the morn of spring. ( 44 ) PAN IS NOT DEAD. A REPLY TO MRS. E. B. BROWNING'S "PAN IS DEAD.' Poetess, crowned with purest radiance, I to heed thy song am fain — Song of plaintive minor cadence. With its mournfullest refrain. Still I deem thy " Pan is dead " All untrue ; I hold instead Pan is not dead. Unless thou deemest the gods of Hellas Died the partial death of men, Outer signs of life that tell us Disappearing from our ken, Leaving yet of each life -whole Germ and crown of life — the soul ; Pan is not dead. PAN IS NOT DEAD. 45 3- True it is the names have perish'd Of the ancient gods Hellene — Zeus, with those dim Tart'rus cherished, And earth-deities between. But the soul of each god-name Now as then remains the same. Pan is not dead. 4- What though Zeus no more hurl thunder From his high Olympian throne, " Sky " or "air " still stirs our wonder, Hath a will, too, all its own. Truth of Zeus-myth cannot die While veiled forces rule the sky. Pan is not dead. 5- And she, Zeus's brain-born daughter. Is her lore for ever said. Now her legend — moving laughter, Name and shrine and cult are dead ? Change may mark each wisdom sign, Wisdom is deathless as divine. Pan is not dead. 6. Goddess too of human passion, With its dire potency. 46 PAN IS NOT DEAD. Art thou dead, now modern fashion In her own mode deems of thee ; Is love's power a whit less mighty, That men name not Aphrodite ? Pan is not dead. 7- Though Apollo's reign be over, And the sun now beams on men As the planets' central mover, Gaseous globe of hydrogen, Yet to learn its end or source is. Now, as then, past man's resources. Pan is not dead. Though the Muses and the Graces Nymphs that sting to song and love, Hold not now their ancient places, Yet they hold their power to move ; In artist's dreams and poet's fire, They thrill to beauty and desire. Pan is not dead. 9- Are not rivers, rills, and fountains Stirred by pulses strong and free ? Hath the wind that sweeps the mountains. No Oread personality ? Change the name, and Naiads still Rule each fount, laugh in each rill. Pan is not dead. PAN IS NOT DEAD. 47 Doth the Rose act all unwitting When she drapes in loveliest hue ? Is the Lily's white unfitting To white impulse to be due. Flower-forms, colours, perfumes claim Individual thought and aim. Pan is not dead. Yield not woods' soft rustling laughter To the sunshine and the breeze ; Hear we not their '' grace '' sung after Tardy showers their thirst appease ? Dryad forms we need not, seeing Each tree is a sentient being. Pan is not dead. Mark the speech and form uprearing Of the tree that proudly thrives ; Note its weak and languid bearing With decay that vainly strives. Who might not, the latter nigh, Say, This Nymph will surely die ? Pan is not dead. 13- Is imagination's force less Now than in the days of yore ; 48 PAN IS NOT DEAD. Move our sympathies remorseless From the feelings which then bore Nature's deeper views and voices When she sorrows or rejoices ? Pan is not dead. 14. Round each object of our senses Mystic vapours darkly spread, And our knowledge of it hence is By our fancy largely sped : Of mist bodies, spectral souls, Partial vision of dim wholes. Pan is not dead. IS- Mythic shape is but the vesture Which man's ignorance doth hide, And the denseness of its texture Forms the line that doth divide Our new science from the lore Of the myth-stirr'd minds of yore. Pan is not dead. 16. Yet while ancient myths of Hellas Fail thy sense of truth t'assuage, Of a later thou dost tell us. Myth of an un worthier age : — The ghostly voice that wailing cried, " Great Pan is dead," when Jesus died. So falsely cried. PAN IS NOT DEAD. 49 17- Myth — true insight unpossessing, Since Christ's mission unto man Was to plant with newer blessing, Not to waste, the realm of Pan ; Kindling upon man's ancient shrine — Part raised by Greece, new fire divine. Pan is not dead. 18. Sensuous Grace, Love, Joy, and Beauty, By Greek god-names symbolized. Find in sacrifice and duty — Higher aims — Christ realized — Needed complement of all Earth-born joys that men enthral. Pan is not dead. 19. Not less blind is modern Science, When it shrieks, " Great Pan is dead," Forbids on fancy's power reliance. And experience lauds instead. Dwarfing man's full mental stature By contracted views of Nature. Pan is not dead. Science truths thus grow prosaic — Forces, measures, half-known laws, E 50 PAN IS NOT DEAD. Pieced in a confused mosaic Of effects without due cause. Ignorance is not removed, Though mere symbols be disproved. Pan is not dead. 21. Is the Real, as men declare it, Naked sense or sordid fact ; Less true than the mode they share it In each conscious thought and act ? All truth must become Ideal Ere it answer man's appeal. Pan is not dead. 22. Truth, like gold for human dealing Blended with some hard alloy. Needs must share man's thought and feeling. Coined and stamped for his employ, Or it cannot circulate free Prime medium in man's currency. Pan is not dead. 23- Poets, then, through realms of fairy Let your Fancy freely stray. Dull truths render gay and airy Paint each fact fair as ye may ; In a world charged with dim glory Room abounds for Fancy's story. Pan is not dead. PAN IS NOT DEAD. 51 24. Though ye cannot now restore us, We know well, the reign of Pan, Nor the myth-world those before us Feigned the ideal heaven of man, Truth may yet be graced by fancies. Life made glorious by romances. Pan is not dead. 25- Hath not life, too, phases unbright, Sorely needing Fancy's aid To illume them, as the sunlight Gilds the margin of the shade — Poor were life, surcharged with dulness, Robb'd of Fancy's frolic fulness ? Pan is not dead. 26. Learn then. Science, larger culture, Sympathies with old and new, Haste not ancient thought's sepulture For its seeming dead to you. Truth there is for all men's quest. Though each age its own deems best. Pan is not dead. 27. And, Religion, smile benignly On the nobler classic lore ; 52 PAN IS NOT DEAL. Hellas sages taught divinely Part of your celestial store. Fififed gold hates not the ore, The matrix rude, itself that bore. Pan is not dead. 28. Nay, let all learn Pan's true lesson, Large embracement of all sooth. Nor unfairly lay all stress on One particular kind of truth ; The further men their limits scan Broader they make the realm of Pan. Pan is not' dead. 29. Thus with knowledge's new-earned treasure Pan's dominions daily spread, Now his rule hath ampler measure Than when fools cried, " Pan is dead ; " The being and compass of the all In thought-expanse can ne'er grow small. Pan is not dead. 3°- No, not dead is Pan, but living. Greatest of the Greek-god race ; The whole embracing, all life giving. In large souls must find a place ; All creation's ideal sum Must waken awe through seons to come. Pan cannot die. PAN IS NOT DEAD. 53 31- Pan by birth-right is immortal, Scion of a race sublime, Kin to beings of endless sort, all Deathless e'en as space and time. Who dare think oblivion's night Can hide the all-present Infinite. Pan cannot die. 32- And, ye earlier myths, we ponder Summ'd in Pan's inclusive being. Born of beauty and dim wonder, Death-proof surely are ye, seeing Twin gods in man's world must be, Beauty e'er with Mystery. Pan cannot die. ( 54 ) THE SONG OF THE WATER-LILY. Upward, upward to the light, From the winter's frozen night, From our bed of slime and ooze. Fit for torpor's dull repose — From the chill depths of the stream To its surface, where the gleam Of the spring tide sheds a sheen Brighter than crystal ever seen. For the May sun glows on high. Beaming from the azure sky. Piercing with effulgent ray Through the water, mud, and clay (Where our roots for many a day, Hidden in their oozy bed, On its succulence have fed), Till its warmth their bosom fills. And each trembling fibre thrills, With a new and sweet emotion. With a manifold commotion, And the torpid, bulbous root, Each like dried pine-apple fruit. THE SONG OF THE WATER-LILY. 55 From its black and wrinkled skin, To the tissue furthest in, Glows afresh with quickening heat In its sombre, cold retreat. ***** Long in winter's deadly chain. In its inert passive pain, Scarce half-living have we lain ; Nay, all lifeless did we seem, When the skate's shrill steely scream Sounded on our frozen stream. When our glazfed face deep snow, Curtained from our world below, Yon un watery world of life, With loveliness and movement rife. All its sky and sun and light With its due alternate night — Then indeed we were as dead Buried in our oozy bed. But, how cold and dark soever, Winter doth not last for ever ; Frosts dissolve, snows nielt away. Water's midnight turns to day. And the motion of the stream. And the spring sun's warmer gleam Woke us from our winter dream. * * * * * Upward ever to the light, To that heavenly radiance bright. 56 THE SONG OF THE WATER-LILY. Would we might attain still nigher To its glorious central fire, Fain would we bathe in its glory, In yon heaven's highest story, Mounting upward on the wings Of our leaves to loftier things. As the birds with lesser pinions Seem to soar to its dominions. But, alas ! our wish is vain, Profitlessly we complain ; All our growth is tied and bounded By its element surrounded. All our snaky arms attain Is the river's face to gain ; All our leaves can do when spread Is their loveliness to shed High as the water lifts its head. And our flowers, radiant white. Though in heavenly hues bedight, Swim no closer to heaven's light. Thus, ourselves we must content With pursuing the due bent Of the impulse in us stirr'd. Though we cannot, like the bird, Cleave the sky with bounding wing, We can do as fair a thing, — We can clothe the river's face With a varying tender grace, THE SONG OF THE WATER-LILY. 57 Shading from the sun's fierce glow All that move and live and grow In the crystal depths below. We can send forth, fair and large. Leaves with rounded graceful marge, Anchored, as a moorfed barge, By green cablets, fast, yet free — As tiny rafts tied to a tree — Gently waving with the force Of the river in its coiuse ; Each an islet, fairy-green, AVhere the halcyon is seen. Brilliant in the May sun's ray With its emerald livery gay,. While it watches for its prey. Or the golden wag-tail seems Raying back the golden beams Which the sunshine on it streams. « » • « * Then, a still diviner dower Yield we in each lustrous flower. Floating lightly on the stream, Like a tender fairy dream ; Each an orange-pupil'd eye. Opened widely to the sky. Beaming in heaven's radiant light. As a lover's eye grows bright When the loved one comes in sight, While the closed lids at night Marks the mood, aggrieved and sore. It can see its sun no more. 58 THE SONG OF THE WATER- LILY. So, our sum of lily duty- Seems to feed the Sense of Beauty Stirr'd in every human breast ; This pursue we then with zest And to Nature leave the rest. ( 59 ) ODE TO THE SKYLARK Oh, not in regular verse Would I thy praise rehearse, Sky songster, that with tireless wing Dost in the heaven's blue vault unceasing sing. More fitted to thy lay — Spontaneous, wild, disdaining rule or measure, Acknowledging no break or stay In its impetuous rush. But pouring forth in ceaseless gush Thy heart's sweet treasure — Were words of like irregular strain Refusing to be bound By measured feet of sense or sound Nor oft repeating — Each lawless stanza's sense completing — The same refrain. Thy wild, impassioned glee Shall music be to me, To which my weaker words I fain would fit The while I at thy feet here humbly sit ; And thy celestial outpour set to This earthy, mean, inadequate libretto. 6: ODE TO THE SKYLARK. What words could man devise, Though ever so music-wise, As to keep pace with thy unceasing trill ? The while I muse on but a single word, Thou, music-maddened bird. With a whole symphony heaven's arch dost fill. And music-mobile souls with kindred rapture thrill. In human words and letters— As though it were a dance in iron fetters — How shall I mark each liquid strain. So volubly and variously renewed, As though each descant with fresh life endued Again and yet again Burst forth with might and main ; Each simple theme pursuing and pursued, As in our cruder fugues the melodic refrain. Surely thy rapture thou canst not contain Nor its ebullient joyousness restrain, ■But as in stress of vehement joy or pain Mortals must vent their cry Or else they die, So forceful thou art fain To fill the sky, And on earth-treading mortals nigh To pour in ceaseless utterance melodious rain. Thy music seems combined Of all bird-harmonies close intertwined As if of all the minstrels of the grove — Moved not by greediness, but love — ODE TO THE SKYLARK. 6i Thou"hadst acquired the fairest notes That e'er were moulded by their tuneful throats. The simple allegros of finch or linnet, The shorter measures of the nightingale, Something of each thy symphony hath in it, Though they have no avail To rob thee of th' individual bent of song Which to thy tuneful brain and heart belong. The demi-semi-quaver's eager gush. Itself exhausting in its rapid rush. Until it ends in a prolonged " Tweet " More varied — yet as sweet — Than the like notes of mavis or of thrush. I mark thy rhythmic glee, Ti-ra-lee, Ti-ra-lee, Ti-ra-lee, In triplets trippingly ; Then tra-ta-ra, tra-ta-ra-lee. In rhythmical dactylic melody, Tit-ar-a-lee-lee ; Tit-ar-a-lee-lee, Swiftest dactyle expanding to spondee. Myriad numbers with measures blent freely. So through perpetual changes Thy warble celestial ranges. Thou prince of aerial musicians ; With sudden inversions and countless transitions Of rhythm, tone, time in endless inflections. Amazing one's mind at the force of thy musical intuitions. Rivalled alone by the strength of thy melodic recollections. 62 ODE TO THE SKYLARK. I listen in a trance Of mutest marvel and subdued delight, Essaying in vain to thread The rhythmic mazes of thy music dance With phantasy unequal to the flight, As though my wingless form and earth-clogg'd tread Could scale thine own celestial height, Or this poor strain, of uncouth fancy bred. Could mate th' ethereal measures of thy carol bright But though thy meaning's depth I fail to reach, Dimly I apprehend, As one who catches a brief fitful gleam Of flashing meaning from a sublime theme. Which doth his insight's power far transcend — Part of the lesson which thy song doth teach. Thus know I that thy musical song-speech Is a pure paean of joy. Without misgiving, drawback, or alloy Such as infects our human gladness with annoy. Nay, subtlest concentration 'tis to me Of every form of passionate glee Which thrills our world with glowing minstrelsy. The May sun's joy with its beaming rays Transmuted seems to thy anthem of praise, The rejoicing of spring with each new quickened thing In the strain is embodied I hear thee sing. The calmer delight of the summer-sea wave To the shore monotoning its monody suave ; The boisterous joy of the thunder-shower, Glad'ning the earth with its heaven-born dower; ODE TO THE SKYLARK. 63 The joy of the wind when, through forest and grove, It sings to the trees like a maid to her love ; The babbling delight of the mountain rill, When it noisily urges its course downhill ; The joy of young children, mirth-oppressed. In laughter expressing their blithe unrest ; — All Nature's joy-outbursts of every kind Set to thy passionate gamut I find. Or transmuted, as men Nature's energies change, To newly found forms or expressions strange. But while the motive of thy song I know, As though each note were steeped in some deep glow Of indevouring bliss, Yet would I fain learn this — What power of sense or thought Thy blissful impulse could bestow, Of its ebullient rapture could have taught ? Perchance, though deluging heaven's arch with glee, And mounting with untiring buoyancy, Thy inblest eye doth mostly see That feathered she So lowly couched upon her grassy nest. And herein doubly blest, List'ning with eye uplifted to thy lay, And sharing its sweet love-enhanced sway With half-fledged larklings cherished 'neath her breast. Yet wider sure thy scope, Filling with buoyant song heaven's widest cope, 64 ODE TO THE SKYLARK. And still ascending high, Till melted seems thy carol into sky, As if it might subdue Heaven's arch of blue With its celestial harmony, Than merely sating hearts and eyes Inspired by earth-engendered ties. Perchance the love that stirs thy breast For the sweet partner of thy lowly nest Was the quick spark that fired Thy heavenward flight and its celestial strain inspired ; Thereby Thou wouldst proclaim to earth and sky How love that sweetens home with tend'rest spell To ampler, more embracing scope may grow and swell. Yet have I heard. Melodious bird, In the foul court or reeking London street, Thy cagfed kin uplifting paeans as sweet As that which my enraptured ears now doth greet, Where sure no sense of home — A skylark's home — could come, Or thought of love For mate or nestlings could them move. And yet they sang as gaily and as strong As if, like thee, to heaven's lark-quire they did belong. Nor singest thou for men. Or other living beings within ear^ken Of thy exultant song ; ODE TO THE SKYLARK. 65 For oft o'er grassy down or heathery moor Whose face no sign of man or large life bore, t have watched the hovering wing, And heard the dulcet strains which to thy race belong. To me thou seem'st to sing, Impelled by no external cause, Except it were the sting Of love and sunshine and the glowth of spring — But most in fealty to infelt laws : — Pure love of beauty into music rendered, Pure joy of life to heaven's high radiance tendered, Pure joy of joyance uttered without pause. ■ Thou wouldest vent To thy full heart's content. Thy scarcely utterable rapture Almost disdaining in its onrush vocal capture By sweetest varied note That e'er was tuned by feathered minstrel's throat. Such seems thy lofty view, Scaling sublimely the sethereal blue And pouring forth thy strains. As though, in labour with sweet music pains. Thou gavest life and voice to beauties ever new. And dared we infer. From the mellifluous stir Of beauty bodied in sweet melody, The feelings that give birth To thy incessant strains of mirth, 66 ODE 7V THE SKYLARK. What depths of rapture in the heart of thee, What stinging thrills of glee, Might then one haply see ; What fever'd beat of joy-pulsations choice, What thoughts thy brain inspiring to rejoice In surging strains almost beyond thy power of voice ! Dear heaven-inspired bird, With feelings deeply stirfd. Thy myriad melody I oft have heard ; And yet those feelings moved in me Are not all tuned to thy enraptured glee. Is it that my feet press, Or that my unwing'd heart and brain caress. This sordid earth. That I cannot re-echo thy celestial mirth — That, following thy strain, I find an undertone of moodiness and pain, The half-disclosing sense of misery Which sore besets men's transient bursts of glee ? Is it the thought that no imagined thing, No earth-engendered joy, how great soever. No bliss-creating task, no bright endeavour. No aim alloy from earth's crude gold to sever. Could e'er make mortal sing As thou dost on thy heaven-poised wing — A song whose content is pure joy. Such as no after-thought can cloy, And of which rapture is the sole impelling spring. ODE TO THE SKYLARK. 67 When human pulses move By stress of joy or love. With tender fear and apprehension blent Is the sweet passionate bent, The very feeling's fire destroying its content. When reason's purer glow Doth nobler joy bestow, Its bliss, with thwarted or unsated effort blended. Assures us that we know By means which in their self-spent energy are ended. So doth our human song. Feeling or reason stirr'd, To different strains belong Than thine, O joy- wrought bird. At times we doubtless sing, But 'tis with earth- not heaven-attracted wing, And our sublimest strains. Serve mostly not to vent our joy, but veil our pains. C 68 ) TO A SNOWDROP. Sweet downcast flower, thou dost bring New spring-fresh tidings of the spring ; Ere that the frozen earth is thawn, Or the snow melted off the lawn, Thy tiny snow-white bells are seen. Each trembhng on its stem of green, As if it were a crystal tear Abstracted from the snow-wreath near. I grant it, snowdrop, thou art fair, Yet hast, methinks, a pensive air ; Thy bent face tells thou art not glad, Thy tear-shaped form proclaims thee sad. Why dost not lift thy green-lid eye And gaze up at the cloud-clad sky ? Thou needst not shame to show thy face. Fair white, embroidered with green lace. I prythee, snowdrop, answer me Two questions I here ask of thee. What mean thy colours white and green (Some meaning have all things, I ween, That Nature moulds by hands unseen) ? TO A SNOWDROP. 69 Then, why for ever hang thy head, Contemplating thy earthy bed, So recent left our air to try. The sunlight and the winter sky ? Then secretly the snowdrop kind Conveyed its answer to my mind, As it waved gently in the wind : " I stand, a bashful, trembling thing, Between the winter and the spring. Between the white reign of the snow And the green splendour spring doth blow. And this is why my hues are seen. Commingling white with dainty green. My snowy petals' scalloped edge. With green lace margined — this allege Winter's fair colour, snowy white. With spring's green lustre I unite. " And this is why I hang my head : — Warm is our gentle mother's bed. Beneath the surface of the ground. Where I enjoyed a peace profound. Which since my birth I have not found. " I meekly muse upon my birth From the warm womb of mother earth. Into this cold, inclement sky, Where changes rule, and winds blow high. And birth but tells us we must die. 70 TO A SNOWDROP. My down-bent face means only this- My birth I count a doubtful bliss, And loving still my mother well, And moved by its tender spell, For ever on her face I dwell. ( 71 ) THE NEW SNOW AND THE OLD. The snowflakes were floating down heaven's aerial height, Each flake, a rare flow'ret of dazzling white. Seemed a crystallized blossom of frozen light. The new snow fell where the old snow lay, In heaps that had drifted now many a day, And their whiteness had turned to a grimy grey. Radiantly white was the new snow and clean ; Each crystal was cut to an edge so keen That its outline by mortals could scarce be seen. The new snow, disdaining the old snow's bed, Befouled and crushed by human tread, Would fain have elsewhere alighted instead. But forced, the snowflakes began to complain — " So changed are ye, we scarce knew you again ; Your form and dinginess smite us with pain. " All crushed are your crystals, and shapelessly torn ; Your colour is changed from its hue heaven-born ; Ye are fitted to rouse our anger and scorn. 72 THE NEW SNOW AND THE OLD. " To look at you now, who is there could know Ye were once, and so late, heaven-descended snow, From your pristine splendour ye have fallen so low ? " But the old snow answered, " 'Tis contact with earth That hath changed our hue from its glory of birth, And in heaven's white sight hath diminished our worth. " Our crystallized beauty we gladly had kept With our lustrous whiteness ; how oft have we wept That both from our being earth so speedily swept ! " And ye, though unsullied ye now are and fair, For similar changes must quickly prepare ; All heaven births grow earthy when breathing earth-air." ( 73 ) A TREE'S DREAM OF ANOTHER WORLD. In the smooth surface of a half-sunn'd pool — A quiet reach, wherein the broad'ning stream Had ponded for itself with gravel stilt, A transient rest, and basked beneath the trees, Ere it resumed its journey through the vale — A youthful oak that slanted from the bank, Beheld, and with increasing wonder mused Upon the beauteous vision spread beneath. " A world I see of beauty, movement, life. In the mysterious depths the pool beneath Is e'er unveiling to my wondering gaze^ A world (whereof its surface seems the gate), Not unlike this whereon I live and thrive. There, too, the sky is beautiful and blue, Sunshine, on cloudless days, illumines its depths, And on fair nights it boasts a moon and stars ; Trees, too, and plants like those that cluster round The pool's green marge — as round its entrance gate Yon nether world produces without stint. Green ferns droop careless there, as they do here. And flowers own their customary hues. 74 A TREE'S DREAM OF ANOTHER WORLD. There, too, the primrose gleams beneath the thorn, Marsh marigolds disport their gold attire. And bearded rushes bend beneath the wind. Nay, I can trace tree-figures like myself. An oak forth jutting from a mossy bank, An ash, two birches in close neighbourhood — As one might see in this world where we live. What means yon world that so resembles this, Yet seems so far removed ? Are there two worlds. And we — my comrade trees and I — stand we Mysterious fixed upon their boundary Une ? How gladly would I pierce the smooth bright gate, Which access gives unto a world so fair ? Who knows what its profoundest depths may hold Beyond the fragment small that meets the sight ? Mayhap yon tree could tell which in the stream Not long since fell, and in the pool its head Deep buried, leaving but its ancient trunk In view. The secrets of that nether world Perchance it knows ; for my part, I know not." ( 7S ) THE FLOWER AND THE FROST. "To-night, I must die," said the tender flower, Still blossoming fresh by a summery bower. " For keen is the air, and an icy chill My stem, leaves, and flowers begins to thrill. " Winter is come, and its cold harsh breath. To me and my kin is the herald of death. " The stars gleam angrily in the sky. As the sun when its rays shone fierce in July. " The dew so refreshing in summer and spring. Forms an icy crust on every green thing. " Like a leprous ulcer, shiny and white. The ground with a death-plague it seems to smite. " Its summer fervour the sun has lost, So cold are its rays they but kindle a frost. " I marked it to-night, and it seemed to go down With an angry glare and a fateful frown. 76 THE FLOWER AND THE FROST. " E'er it rises to-morrow my life will have sped, And I shall be numbered among the dead. " Through the long dark night it will ebb away, And all will have perished ere break of day. " The stars that in spring looked down on my birth, Now watch while I hopelessly sink to earth. " Are there not twain spirits that rule plant life, With each other contending in mutual strife ? " One genders the plant, moulds and paints the flower A god-like, creative, constructive power. " The other — death spirit — gives all its employ. Life and life-products to smite and destroy. " I feel its stern grip in each fibre to-night. Ready use it makes of the frost's cold blight. " Alas ! 'tis the stronger— strive life as it may. Death sooner or later enforces its sway." ( 77 ) THE ROSARIAN'S RETURN TO HIS ROSERY AFTER A VISIT TO LONDON ON THE OCCASION OF A PUBLIC PAGEANT. O YE roses, doubly fair, Trebly sweet are ye and true ; Now your glory I compare, With what lately tired my view. Royal pomp and lordly grandeur. Gold and gems of varied hues ; Wealth's adornment, and the splendour State and civic pageants use. Tinselled trappings do they seem, By your splendour nobly chaste, Like true diamonds ye gleam, Man's proud glitter is but paste. His rank gauds are either meant Loud to blazon forth his pride. Or mayhap, with false intent. Mind or body-ill to hide. 78 THE ROSARIAN'S RETURN TO HIS ROSERY. True are ye, my darling beauties, Void of guile and loud display ; Modesty the crowning fruit is Of your varied rich array. Well said He, in ancient story. Seeing the lilies in the breeze, Israel's king, in all his glory, Was not like to one of these. ( 79 ) THE SPIDER'S WEB. Upon my bookshelves' topmost stage I found, and brushed with cleanly rage, A spider's web of recent age. Its rounded network was complete. Each strand was wove and knotted neat, As e'er was net for fly-snare meet. Yet in the round decoy I saw No trace of aught that Nature's law Enjoined to sate a spider's maw. No trace of moth or gauzy wing. Of fly or any wingfed thing, I found in that well-netted ring. One object only it contained. Shrunken — ^of all life's juices drained And dead — the spider there remained. Died of starvation it was clear, No fly to his decoy came near, His web wove did his shroud appear. 8o THE SPIDER'S WEB. " Perchance, O spider," then said I, " Thy web was woven somewhat high To trap the merely earth-born fly." Those who on flies do mean to thrive. Must weave their webs where they most live : Rule good for men I herewith give. ( 8i ) THE SNOW AND THE RIME ; OR, THE ARTISTIC ADORNMENT OF NATURE. In the youth of the world, and in winter-tide, By its own crystal affluence stirr'd with pride, The Snow took occasion the Rime to deride. " Truce to thy toy-work and bead-stringing, Rime, So puny thy efforts, thou but losest thy time To adorn Mother Nature and make her sublime. " Minute are ±y crystals and lace fringes trim, Her features and outlines thou dost but limn With silvery pencillings meagre and slim. " Why not do as I, and envelop her quite With a dense crystal vesture, glistening white. Each changed feature rend'ring a new delight ? "Thou Nature's own nudity dost but enhance, With lines marked as if by the point of a lance. Whereas my mantle lends her fresh form and romance." Softly answered the Rime, " 'Tis true, sister Snow, Thy intent and thy prowess I equally know, A new form on Nature thou wouldest bestow. G 82 THE SNOW AND THE RIME. " But in Nature adornment I deem this unwise— Her beauties to bury beneath a disguise, Were to veil her sweet truth with a vesture of lies ; " Like a statue or picture, fair as may be, Enrob'd and enmask'd by uncouth drapery, Till its outline or colour we no longer see. " Thou forgettest that Nature's real outline is fair. And her lineaments loveliest, passing compare, And to add to their beauty might well cause despair. " I, knowing that truth, am content to impinge On her outlines my bead-work, and crystals I hinge On the same lines in pendants of silver fringe. " With minutest pearls I aim but to trace Each lineament fair of her beauteous face, And add to her outline a light touch of grace. " Not burying, as thou dost, each picturesque tree. In silver I sketch its minute tracery. And relimn its fair contour with bright filigree. " I embroider with diamonds the feathery pine. The fir's needles green, be they never so fine, I lightly begem with pearls strung in a line. " Each bladelet of grass with pearl-dust I adorn, Glistening pendants I hang e'en on thistle and thorn. And glory impart to what else might move scorn. THE SNOW AND THE RIME. 83 " Thus Nature's fair outlines I hold intact — Nor would I, to array, disguise her least fact. Least of all a new Nature propose to enact." « ^ ilt « ^ Ye writers who follow wild fantasy's bent. Of this fable ye haply divine the intent, For your teaching its rede is especially meant. In vain Nature's workings and facts do ye strive Under grotesque romances to bury alive. So that of her true outlines but few survive. Not arrayed is Nature, but smothered quite — Like a tree in a snow-drift hid out of sight By the lawless fancies in which ye delight. Ample scope hath romance in fair Nature's domain, And her genuine lovers do well to disdain To ascribe to her workings untrue and insane. Not painters of Nature, but murd'rers, forsooth, Are those who obscure by subverting her truth, And trample it down withoiit scruple or ruth. Then learn ye the lesson, well meet for this time, Nature beauties to treat not as Snow but as Rime ; Nature-decking is art. Nature-crushing is crime. ( 84 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (11.)- THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE FROG. Quotation. " Mais quand un pauvre esprit travaille beaucoup pour ne rien faire qui vaille, et qu'il ne peut ainsi obtenir des lou- anges publiques, afin que son travail ne demeure pas sans recompense, Dieu lui en donna une satisfaction person- elle qu'on ne peut lui envier sans une injustice plus que barbare. C'est ainsi que Dieu, qui est juste, donne aux grenouilles de la satisfaction de leur chant." — Pascal, "Lett. Frov.,^' Lett. ix. Quotation from P. Garasse. Comment. On a moonlit night in the noon of May, When the night begins to steal from the day- Greater share of the spring sun's genial sway, A nightingale sang — 'twas his earliest song — In a new leaved coppice, its foliage among, On a bough that a rush-margined pond overhung, With joy inspired by the radiant scene ; For the water, the trees, and the meadows green Were up-lit by a lovely, fantastic sheen. THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE FROG. 85 Inspired no less by his brown bird-mate, Sitting near in placid maternal state On eggs that to song she would transmutate. He sang with full outpour of throat and heart, His multiple strains being conceived with art, While he to their rend'ring skill did impart. Pursuing each descant in nightingale range, He was sportive and plaintive in speediest change, No mood to his song seem'd unfitting or strange. He sang ulitil weary, then ceased, when there broke On the moonlit stillness a dissonant croak : 'Twas a frog in the pond underneath that spoke. The bird, with the Spirit of music imbued, The reptile's croak deemed maliciously rude. " My song," thought he, " hath harsh interlude.'' Again he burst forth as if fain he had drowned In the surges of music he wafted around The Batrachian croaker's unmusical sound. But whenever he ceased, at once awoke The echoes around — the lugubrious croak. Said the nightingale, "This is beyond a joke." How they held converse, few could tell ; But I wield in such matters a potent spell, And that this was their dialogue I know well : 86 THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE FROG. " Prythee, frog ! cease thy detestable croak," Said the bird; " in foul mud thy throat thou dost soak, So that strains the most dismal it needs must evoke. " Silence better befits thee. So, listen to me. As I warble my night-carol varied and free. That my music is best thou must surely agree." Croaked the frog in reply, " Thy song I have heard. But the only reflection in me it hath stirr'd Is, ' Much better I sing than yon noisy bird.' " Its obstreperous music aches my head ; To prevent its annoy I warble instead My own sweeter lay froni my rushy bed. That thy music is higher esteemed than mine. Though I marvel thereat, I do not repine ; That my power is unique — I deem it a sign." L'Envoy. Everywhere famed is the nightingale's note ; And if frogs to ill music mistune their throat, Their concern may be less if on that they dote. The nightingale's song is attuned to its ear ; One sense rules the other — their organs are near ; That the same law applies to frog-music is clear. ( 87 ) THE STARS. O YE Stars, in your radiance appearing, And our night-shrouded world overseering : Ye puzzle us sore by your number. And our marvel admits of no slumber. We muse with vague awe on your sources, Nor less puzzling to us are your courses. Were ye meant by your far-twinkling faces. To teach how unbounded heaven-space is. Or to hint to all Reason's rude questing Time's aeons roll ever unresting. Were ye fashioned by meteorites clashing, New orbs with smit radiance flashing ? Single sun and world systems now gleaming Where once meteor rivers were streaming ? Or from nebulae perhaps coalescing. And orbed by contraction's dense stressing ? How deeply we ponder your story, As ye nightly gleam forth in your glory ! 88 THE STARS. Do ye shine to give scope for our wonder At your infinite beauty and grandeur ? Are ye given that men in your quiet May find peace from contrasted earth-riot ? In your clustering orbs ever biding, Are there beings like ourselves perhaps residing ? Gleam ye to prompt man's desire, To bid his soul starward aspire ? Are your radiance and tenderness given That our earth may reflect your heaven ? Have ye nothing to sate man's deep yearning Beyond his earth vision discerning? No trace of a knowledge transcending, Where crude methods of science have ending ? — The telescope, spectroscope limit Whereby aiding heaven's light we oft dim it. No whisper of whence, why, or whither, To man's quest or his gaze coming hither ? No response in your course or your lustre. Which might for true knowledge pass muster ? # » « » * We ask, and for answer we listen In vain ; ye but silently glisten. ( 89 ) PHYSICAL -v. MENTAL LIFE. Regnant orbs of day and night, Sun and moon bright ; Dark is your luciferous might, Night- or noon-light ; Giving scope to visual sense By your brightness. Ye still make the mind more dense With your lightness. Thus your radiance seems a screen Falsely glowing, Apt to waive attention keen From your knowing. Much of your light would men give For ybur learning, Whence and why ye light-orbs live Well discerning. Mere eye-light doth not suffice For mind questing ; Reason claims her efforts' price. On truth resting. 90 PHYSICAL V. MENTAL LIFE. Like a glass-imprisoned bee Windows haunting, Marvelling it is not free, Egress wanting ; Knowing not what means the sheen When light pierces Some transparency between, While it fierce is, To suppose it is confined By the medium — Light and airiness, designed For its freedom. 1^ # ^p * * We but beat earth's window-pane, Ever trying Ardently, but all in vain, Light descrying, To transmute the gleam we see By it bounded To heaven-light ; there moving free, Light surrounded. To extend our range of sense Feebly prying. To the thought of God immense And undying. ( 91 ) TO MY CAT " MUFF." Thou art not dumb, my MufF; In those sweet pleading eyes and earnest look Language there is enough To fill with living type a goodly book. Wherein who read might see What tones unheard, and forms of silent speech Are given that such as thee The eloquence of dumbness men might teach. No need of vocal noise To tell thy varied range of wish or thought j Thy every glance a voice Whose sweet inflections trustful love hath taught. More legible to me Than human accents, words with vague intent. Thy tacit speech is free From the reproach, " To hide thought speech was meant." 92 TO MY CAT "MUFF." Doubtful man's symbols are, Masked his face, his words with glozing tainted ; But naught there is to mar The truth serene on thy sweet features painted. List the ear-splitting din Men use to vent their wants and woes to men Until our world is kin, In uncouth clamour, to a wild beast's den. How peaceful were our lot Were human moods and wishes soft conveyed In speechful silence, not By dissonant sounds and wordy hubbub's aid ! If silence, Muff, be gold. Gold doubly gilt were silence such as thine ; Since naught it leaves untold Of aught could pass from thy fond heart to mine. As thrills the electric strand. So the chord, tense with sympathetic feeling, That knits in one same band All sentient life, new force is aye revealing. Or as some work of art, By brush or graver bodying true emotion, Large meaning may impart. And silently unfold its plastic notion. TO MY CAT "MUFF." Philosophers debate If without speech thought may exist or no ; How needless all their prate The mute thought on thy brow doth clearly show. Men call thee " dumb " and " brute ; " Yet if best speech be marked by truth and grace, No worthier tongue, though mute, Was ever spoken than now speaks thy face. ( 94 ) EPITAPH ON "MUFF." (Hopelessly diseased by cancer, was shot May 24, 1887. ) Farewell, dear Muff; thy painful life is o'er, And death, unconscious yet most kind, hath tore Thee from thy human friends whose hearts are sore. No more thy sweet expression shall I see. Or marvel at thy deep placidity ; A tender dream art thou henceforth to me. We durst not see the leprous ulcers spread, Nor mark the anguish their fell gnawing bred, So in the briefest moment thou art dead. Yet on thy hopeless fate I fain would muse. For saddest things that must my spirit bruise. To meditate is e'er my spirit's use. Haply related to thy fatal taint, That yearning look — that might beseem a saint Before his shrine — was the beseeching plaint. Thy gentle wonderment at life and pain. Each adding to the other's puzzling chain — Twin knot, whose solving men attempt in vain. EPITAPH ON "MUFF." 95 I cannot choose but vaguely speculate, Stirr'd by dim hopes, upon thy after-fate, In most things human man's all-worthiest mate. What constitutes a soul, or gives a claim To deathless life ? Is't meekness, love's pure flame, Or that supremest power we Reason name ? All these thou hadst — in ample measure too ; Though mute thy Reason, it was Reason true. While in meek love most men thou wouldst outdo. Alas ! we leave thy fate where we leave ours. In the dim vagueness of our stunted powers — A theme for Fancy in her plaintive hours. Thus much is certain ; can mortals e'er claim more ? Thy life life's worthiest fruits in plenty bore. Thy death in pleasure lessens our life's store ; So we bemoan thee with sad hearts and sore. C 96 ) A NOVEMBER BIRD CHORUS. The autumn breezes like chartered thieves Free licence wield. Compelling the aspens their bright gold leaves To the earth to yield, Where the robber winds group them as the sheaves Of the harvest-field. The aspen branches, spread broad and high, Are sparsely clad. Few left of their gold leaves against the sky, ■Which made one glad ; These twirl with a hoUow rustling sigh, As though they were sad. Through a rift in the clouds — a rift of white, The sun's rays stream. Making the scattered leaves so bright Gold pieces seem, Reflashing the quivering noon-sun's light With varied gleam. But what chorus is that, but now begvm. With beauty untold, A NOVEMBER BIRD CHORUS. 97 A tremulous twittering unison 'Mid the leaves of gold ? Sweet weaving of notes of bird-joy spun In myriad fold. Not gilded leaves only the branches bear ; The gazer sees, Blended with gold leaves scattered spare, The aspen trees Hath hundreds of linnets filling the air With sweet bird-glees. Their chorus sounds a full-bodied strain, As though each bird To the others its own sweet song were fain To make duly heard Harmoniously, by no envious pain Of rivalry stirr'd. " What prompts your rapture, ye minstrels sweet ? " The birds I asked. " Ye cannot stern winter be minded to greet With songs joy-task'd. And the sun is losing the summer heat In the which ye bask'd. " Soon will the winter, with loathed train Of snow and frost. The deadly hail and the icy rain. Your lives may cost ; At least the food ye need to sustain You will then be lost." H A NOVEMBER BIRD CHORUS. Thea methought made answer the linnet choir To my mute request, " We sing in chorus for reasons higher Than those you suggest. Delight of reunion our notes inspire, And thrill each breast. " Through the summer we wandered each couple apart O'er woodland and moor, Obeying the prompting that stirr'd each heart To its inmost core — Our nestlings' care, and the sweet love-smart To each other we bore. " Now summer is ended, and summer care Is passed away. We — parents and nestlings — together share In this holiday ; And we gather in troops and warble this fair, Mixed roundelay. " Oh, great is our joy when we jointly sing, A linnet crowd, When raptures move us, both throat and wing. To a chorus loud. And our best bird-notes we carelessly fling. As each is endowed. " ' How blithe we are, and how full of love ! ' Is our rendered song ; A NOVEMBER BIRD CHORUS. 99 Greater passion to cooing turtle-dove Doth not belong, Nor the joy of aught living below or above Than ours more strong. " For winter, though nigh, of that have we No present care ; Our hearts are filled with rapturous glee On this day so fair, And when snow and frost we really see. We will then prepare." So warbled the birds in the aspen boughs, While the gold leaves fell, And feelings like theirs their notes did arouse As by common spell, And I said, " Your teaching my heart allows ; Ye teach wisely and well." L'Envoy. Give vent to, each current feeling of joy; Each jubilant thrill Of love and friendship seek not to destroy By boding ill. Our winter may come, but as yet its annoy Need not us fill ; With forecast uncertain 'twere foolish employ The present to kill. ( lOO ) THE AGED BLIND BIRD. In a Somersetshire newspaper lately (October, 1888), mention was made of a person who owned " a goldfinch and canary mule bird more than twenty years old. Its sight was quite gone, but it sang splendidly every day.'' " Twenty years old, and blind," What impulse canst thou find. Sweet singer of a hybrid race, Prompting thy strains of gaiety and grace ? Long has thy world been dark, Thy outer vivid world of glad'ning sight. And yet, immersed in dreary night, Thou warblest like the music-maddened lark, Who, when the summer morn is scarce begun, Up soars to meet the sun. Yet with what narrower range Of visual sense and light, What rare incitements of swift change. Long-blunted stings of varied stimuli Than those which urge the lark to mount on high ! No sight of sun or sky Thy bosom thrills. Or view of trees and flowers With rapture fills. The same dark gloom envelops all thy hours In one unchanging blank monotony Hardly suggestive, one might think, of buoyant glee. THE AGED BUND BIRD. Yet what know we ? Thy inner world we cannot see ; The spirit-plectrum, subtle, sweet, Which stirs with throbbings thy enchanted lyre. Yielding the ravishment our senses greet. May be some unknown spark of heavenly fire. Haply thy orbits dark, With added power far more intense . Than that enshrined in outward sense, Their light derive from that aethereal spark, And, though still blind to our outer world, May have a richer universe unfurled — An inner world, ideally bright : And so the hidden light That '' never yet was seen on land or sea," In all its potent might. May prompt and guide thy glorious minstrelsy. Haply bright suns and trees and flowers, In splendour rivalling those sights Which 'trance our eyes with ever-new delights. Fill with diviner ecstasy thy sightless hours. Bird-dreams of a world outside our ken. Where feathered minstrels, uncaged by men, Full liberty using of sight and wing, In the freedom and rapture of nature sing ; Where skies smile serenely in vernal blue, And bird-yearnings are sated while yet they are new Where companionships sweet each livelong day Make the hours pass briskly and blithely away ; THE AGED BLIND BIRD. Where no winter comes with its numbing chill, As if bird-life and music together to kill ; Where bird-powers enlarge their earth-senses' store And sightless orbits are known no more ; Where ail blessings of earth fill a nobler track, While nothing remains of its let and lack. Or is it memory's long-hoarded wealth, When vital all thy senses were with health, The storage of thy visual delight Ere yet thy day became perpetual night, That prompts the song Thou sing'st unceasingly the whole day long ? Or other senses than the sight Which erewhile basked in heaven's all-radiant light, Mayhap they guide thee to thy joy With power enhanced, since vision lacks employ. So that the breath of spring. Hearing thy feathered mates more blithely sing. And thrills of sunshine vibrating each wing. Remind thee of the seasons' seen delight Ere all was veiled in a perpetual night. The new-draped glory of the trees and flowers, The sweets alternative of sun and showers, The sequent brilliancy of summer hours — These teach thy vernal outbursts loftier flight. Thus, although sightless, thou may'st drink Sweet spring and sunimer joy at every chink Or pore of sensibility. With scope enlarged And feelings weightier charged By narrowing thy outer sense-utility. THE AGED BLIND BIRD. 103 Or sing'st thou mostly for that, being blind, Of other pleasures reft by fate unkind, Yet use of faculties still left behind Thou dost not pettishly disdain ; So that for loss of sight some compensation Thou find'st in song — the endless modulation Of each accustomed strain. Transforming to voice-pleasure thy blind pain, As if crude ore of narrowed pining want By the sweet magic in thy nature rooted Were there transmuted To the pure gold of a triumphal chant ? 'Tis certain thou hast no incentives such as sting Most other birds to sing ; No urgements in thy lot so dark As those which stir the carol of the lark ; No love-intoxication sweet As that compelling other birds to greet Their wished mates and bring them to their feet. No ! thou, blind bird. Art inly ^tirr'd By music-impulses we cannot learn ; But, though thy motives we may not discern. We well know this : — Privation dire Lacks power oft to quench joy's subtle fire, Or stay its vented floods of radiant bliss. ( I04 ) TO A ROSE TORN FROM ITS PARENT TREE BY A JULY HAIL-SHOWER. On the green sward prone, Face downward and lone, Lay a Rose — Sad prey, fair and frail, Of the thunder-brew'd hail. Which the tree did assail With fell blows. By the fierce volley press'd, The green lawn it caress'd As it lay. Glad to hide its torn face, With its perfume and grace. In the turf's close embrace From the fray. Like a corpse just died. In youth, beauty, and pride, Still looks fair. Ere corruption's malign Touch hath ventured a sign Of the dark fate condign It must share, TO A ROSE TORN FROM ITS PARENT TREE. 105 The bright crimson bloom Still shed light on the gloom Spread around, From the dark livid sky To the dank turf nigh, Where the hail-stones did lie Self-drown'd. Promiseful was the flower Ere the summer hail-shower Wrought its doom. Long might it the glow Of its rose-light bestow On plants near, made to grow Without bloom. Long its fragrance might cling To each zephyr's light wing ■ As it flew. Making faint with perfume The charmed circle its bloom With the light did illume Of its hue. Now a sight forlorn Seemed the bloom thus torn From its tree ; Its mute sad appeal (For I know flowers feel) For pure pity did steal Tears from me. io6 TO A ROSE TORN FROM ITS PARENT TREE. But what outlook keen Could for fate so unseen Bid prepare ? Who would dream in July Winter hail, rushing by, Would snatch and leave die Flower so fair ? " Poor Rose ! " then I said, " Though quick shorn the gold thread Of thy life, Know the same grim Fate, On thy living man-mate Strokes like thine doth not bate Of her knife. " Men and Roses, dear Rose, Whate'er lives or blows Partake all Of the lot that clings — Life- or death-chance brings To all earth-born things "Great or small." ( I07 ) ODE TO DARKNESS. Mysterious black aerial bound, Half palpably encircling round That atom of vitality, My being's whole sphere — self-conscious me. Thy formless form how shall I dare Describe, or limn the vacant air ? Mere yielding blackness — that is all Experience taught — I may thee call. In thy dark embrace, I could close. My useless eyelids and suppose I waked alone in some black cave, A murky world, or narrow grave. And yet hast thou thy qualities. Which are not unrealities. Thou hast existence — that is clear. Though what it is doth scarce appear. Objective blindness thou dost seem To us, who all truth needs must deem From the small standpoint of our sense, E'en though its object be immense. io8 ODE TO DARKNESS. Thou hast, I take it, colour too ; We note thy presence by its view. Though truth our eyes perhaps may not tell, When blind men see thee just as well. Than light thou closer seem'st to cling, And subtle mists dost round us fling ; Hence our felt space scarce more extends Than where man's frame begins and ends. Sameness too, seems a trait of thee — Thou art alike where'er we be ; Not as the light's e'er changing hue, Which restless flashes all things new. Fit type thou art of nothingness, Or more, of minds that dimly guess That nothing must that being be Which their own eyes as nothing see. Type also art thou of man's being. Surrounded by a vague non-seeing. Since that his petty circle round Extends a darkness without bound. Due symbol also of man's knowing, Which, though alive, p'raps somewhat growing. Is but an islet in the immense Dark ocean of his nescience. Nay, ties thou claimest closer still, A parent's role thou'rt held to fill For man, the universe and all The vastness we Existence call. ODE TO DARKNESS. 109 Daughter of Chaos, men of old Thy ancient race profoundly told — Fitting ancestry this, it seems. Of Kosmos that with darkness teems. Yet, though thy curtain circles round Our being with pitchy depths profound, We feel there needs but little light To put thy dismal reign to flight. A little circuit — that is all — Eastward of our revolving ball Extinguishes night's ebon hue, Rekindling varied light anew. So may some further progress slight To day transmute our sombre night. When all earth-gloom may melt away In the clear beam of endless day. ( no ) NOVEMBER WINDS. Ye mournful blasts assailing The bare and branchy trees, Your tones seem doleful wailing Matched with the summer breeze. No note have ye of gladness ; Your strains are steeped in sadness, Or rise to shrieking madness. As waves on storm-tossed seas. The summer's leafy rustle Had life-breath in its tone. With death as though a tussle Ye wage, so deep ye groan ; Ye pant with mournful sighing. Or utter long-drawn crying, As if Nature's self were dying, Neglected and alone. What is it that ye utter When loud your murmurs rise ? What thoughts are those ye mutter In more subdued cries ? NOVEMBER WINDS. We know all Nature's voices Not mere unmeaning noise is, But signs that she rejoices, Or, sorrow-burdened, sighs. So haply ye are wailing For summer joys long past, With sorrow unavailing Your fate should thus be cast, Not as the winds before ye, Who basked in summer's glory, And drank of her rich store — ye Are but a wintry blast. The breeze that breathed the fragrance Of the fresh-blown May, And flitted in the radiance Of springtide's genial ray ; That heard the songs uproarious Of nestling birds in chorus, And stole the perfume glorious Of the new-mown hay. The winds that kissed- the flowers Beneath June's leafy shade, Or cooled with July showers Bare field or wooded glade ; That drank the fragrant breathing, Around the roses wreathing — Choice cups wherein sun-seething Her perfumes summer made. NOVEMBER WINDS. The August winds that played Among the rustling corn, Or 'mid bright pendants strayed That fruit-trees did adorn ; That echoed to the laughter, In louder tones or softer, That ever followed after The harvest homeward borne. Ye blow 'neath skies draped sadly In winter's dismal shroud. O'er fields half-hid ungladly In cold ice-mist and cloud ; No summer fragrance knowing. Nor summer sunshine glowing. Nor bird-song joy bestowing In measures sweet and loud. 'Tis meet your voice be wailing, O sad November wind, When your troubled being is ailing With memories unkind. Your spirit-brethren mourning, Their joys to mind returning. Make your lot worthier spurning That you are left behind. Your clamour is his moaning Who wails a perished race — NOVEMBER WINDS. 113 Who ghost-like wanders groaning Around their burying-place ; Who knows that summer pleasure Was granted them in measure, And now, all spent her treasure. No power may it replace. ( "4 ) A CLOUD INVOCATION. (August, 1887.) Come, prythee, cloud ! Once more our heavens o'erhang with thy dark shroud. Sunstricken, we are languid, limp, and cow'd. To earth quite bowed. Day after day. The sun hath flashed on us with steel-white ray, And men, birds, flowers, for thy sombre grey Devoutly pray. Of cloudless shine Like that which scorches dwellers 'neath the line, Wearied we are, and for thy rainful sign We panting pine. Fierce torrid heat, For England's clime and people all unmeet. Too long upon our drooping heads doth beat — Thy shade were sweet. Spring's vesture new On woods and fields hath lost its lustre due. Merged in the dazzling and unvarying hue Of heaven's bright blue. A CLOUD INVOCATION. 115 The shrunken brook That creeps, faint whispering by yon woodland nook, Doth toward thee, as child by nurse forsook. Wistfully look. Sadly and lean, Browsing the arid pasture — no more green — The kine gaze heavenward plaintively ; they mean T'implore thy screen. We are not made For ceaseless brightness unrelieved by shade. We parch and shrink, as flowers reft of thy aid Droop down and fade. So, prythee, cloud ! With moisture and with coolness sweet endowed Encompass us ; so lifting heads now bowed. We'll laud thee loud. ( ii6 ) THE ASPEN LEAVES TO THE SNOWSTORM. (North Devon, October 19, 1887.) Too soon ! dread herald of winter, too soon ! Like night stealing strange on the rathe afternoon. ^ Though untimely, we know thee, presager of ill ; Thy dank, clammy clutch, with its dead'ning thrill, Thy shroud of death-pallor and numbing chill. Not dead are we yet, but in green old age Are equal to bearing the autumn wind's rage ; But this foretaste of winter and ice is too much. We shiver and shrink from thy death-griping touch. ^Vhy needlessly hasten the fateful day When in Nature's due course we must fall and decay ? » * * * * A few weeks longer, when withered we lie In death's motley hues on the turf hard by ; When the sky with its wintriest clouds is o'ercast. And the leaf-bereaved branches are bent by the blast ; When through our late home, 'mid the twigs overhead, The hollow wind moans like a dirge for the dead ; — Then pityingly veil us, float down from the cloud, And our pale corpses wrap in thy cold white shroud ; THE ASPEN LEAVES TO THE SNOWSTORM. 117 Then death's last sad office discharge with due grace, Its funereal traces with beauty efface, And hide our decay 'neath thy soft embrace From the Nature that knew us when, sprightly and green, We merrily flashed back the summer's sun's slieen. » * * » » But not yet do we wish for thy sextoning care — We need for its office due time to prepare ; So this premature burial we prythee forego. And for winter reserve winter's work, O snow ! ■ ( ii8 ) TO THE WEST WIND. Wind of the west, wild wind of the west, In fragments of mist and ragged clouds drest. And blustering loud as a thing possest, What art thou? A demoniac spirit that goads the waves. Till each with thy boisterous madness raves, And fills with its shrieking the rocky caves. A merciless force that with lawless antic Sweeps ships and lives from the troubled Atlantic, And Nature and men drive equally frantic. The deadliest foe to the drowning crew, With purpose malign thou their lives dost pursue. Till o'er their graves shrieks the wild sea-mew. A spirit of power ineffably grand To those who watch, from the rocky strand. Maddened waves of the sea, or mad trees on the land. Dread spirit of woe to the widow forlorn, From whose life the joy and the strength thou hast torn With burdens o'erloading it, not to be borne. TO THE WEST WIND. 119 An angel of death to the trees on the shore, Which turn from thy breath as a thing they abhor Their brine-burnt boughs and stunted trunks hoar. A spirit of hfe to the sunburnt fields, When thou heapest the clouds and their moisture yields Ripened corn to the sickle the reaper wields. An angel of health to the pallid race, When foul cities they leave, in the fields to efface Their pallor and toil in thy strong embrace. Thus, wind of the west, wild wind of the west. Thou art sometimes a blessing, but ofttimes a pest ; Upstirring life's storms, or ensuring its rest. Too good to be cursed, too bad to be blest ( 120 ) NATURE'S MUFFLED VOICES. SPRING TRAVAIL, 1888. He who on Nature hath his mind intent Her voices hears — not only in free vent, But when in her deep bosom they are pent. He hears within the ardent panting strain Of forces, freedom striving to attain, Held still in durance — suEf'ring prisoned pain. As flooding waters chafing with their bounds, As caged beasts pursue their restless rounds, Or, straining at their leash, wild, eager hounds. So in this tardy spring, I hear the voices Of Nature forces — muffled murm'ring noises. Of powers whose force restrained against their choice is. " I cannot breathe," sighs the Wind of the South, " This Nor'-Easter kills the warm breath of my mouth ; I suffer like flowers in summer drouth." NATURE'S MUFFLED VOICES. " Blue as ever are we," say the vernal skies, " And as ready to bless earth's uplifted eyes, If cold mists would but cease from herself to arise." " My heart glows the same," saith the April sun, " As in ages past since the world begun ; But by frosts and cold blasts my rays are undone." " Dumb is the song in each frozen throat," Sigh the birds ; " nor as yet can we twitter a note, Though our music is ready — ^we have it by rote." " We pine to come back to our nest-crowded eave," Say the swallows ; " this tardiness makes us grieve, But we dare not return till spring weather gives leave." " Prepared is my chant, ' Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! ' " Saith the herald of spring ; " but I cannot coo, coo While this bitter Nor'-Easter chills me through." Say the flowers, " Arranged is our vernal glow. Its beauty and fragrance on earth to bestow ; But thwarted and vain are our efforts to blow. " Our germs of form, of perfume, and bloom. Though long since conceived in her fruitful womb. Nature still retains in its 'prisoned gloom." "We will to rise. 'Tis our being's decree," Say the multiform sap of plant, shrub, and tree ; " But from cold obstruction we first must be free." NATURE'S MUFFLED VOICES. What thousandfold streamlets of juices rare, Vital spirits, each feeding its lamp's bright glare. Now long with green light to illume the spring air ! But, froze in their ducts, their vital flow Is arrested, and quenched is the lustrous glow — The green glory which spring on the earth doth bestow. Say the myriad buds, " 'Tis time we were burst. To open and burgeon we ardently thirst ; Of all senses young life that feels thwarted is worst." And each chrysalis, egg, or life-latent thing. Awaiting new powers of life and of wing. In its prison bewails the obstruction of spring. " We long to run free," sings each mountain rill, " So with music and verdure the valley to fill ; But, chained by the frost, voice and motion are still." So the countless powers of the teeming earth — Spring's vernal offspring — are come to the birth. But of strength to bring forth there is dreariest dearth. ( 123 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (III.). FLOWER m OUGHTS. Quotation. "To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often he too deep for tears." * Comment. Below the tear-marked line In men who muse and pine For knowledge hid beneath eye-sense, Thought hath her depths profound, immense. In those fair ideal deeps Sweet Fancy never sleeps. But restless wanders, keen to trace Truths hid beneath each flow'ret's face. As if a human soul. Part of the sentient whole, The mask of flowers would penetrate, And scan its kindred's unveiled state. " The meanest flower that blows " Hath life, nay, joys or woes. Revealing to the soul-stirred eye Profoundest depths of sympathy. * Wordsworth, " Ode on Immortality." 124 FLOWER THOUGHTS. Not only life it shares With men, and common cares, But by due powers and limits known Its life is personal as man's own. The meanest flower that blows Its history doubtless knows — Its life from birth to present growth, Each frost of winter — summer glowth. It knows when, forceful, free, Outflows its energy, Or when its course is cramped or cross'd, Or by some fatal influence lost. At once the languid bloom Or leaves proclaim the gloom Of sickness and the loathed decay Of life that fades too soon away. What silent wailings burst From flowers that droop with thirst ! What misery in each pendant leaf. And in each dying bloom what grief ! Surely they feel some pain, Although we cannot gain. By our crude sense, the keen insight Fitted to probe flower-thoughts aright. The rose torn off and crushed. Although its voice be hushed. Its mild resentment yet proclaims. And man's harsh treatment mutely blames. FLOWER THOUGHTS. 125 Upon the summer road Thrown careless, haply trode By passing footsteps, thus it wails The harshness that its lot assails : " For this did I my gold Or crimson bright unfold, Amid the summer dust to lie, A spurnbd outcast piteously. " For this did I distil The perfume that might fill With sweetness rare my circuit round, And fragrant make the scentless ground." And do not flowers confess Their sense of loneliness, And seem to wail — in human mood. Though mute appeal — ^their solitude ? Hence comes th' enhanced delight When crowded blooms unite With chorus'd joy to thrill each sense. As men's shared gladness grows intense. The gorse that blooms alone Long ere the frosts be gone. Illuming with its vivid gold The dreary moor unhued and cold. The speedwell's blue stars seen Crushed around by mean Coarse growths of nettles, docks — rude breeds Of flowerless plants and noxious weeds. 126 FLOWER THOUGHTS. The foxglove's tardy bloom Enlivening the gloom Of winter woods with its sole beam 'Mid the dark waste, one sunlit gleam. The single pale primrose Amid half-melted snows, A spark of springtide's warmth close bound By winter's chill spread far around ; Or rooted in a cleft Of wall or rock, bereft Of kindly juices, stunted, wild As some forsaken orphan child. All seem to moan, though mute, " Why are we destitute Of the sweet countenance and aid By comrade flowers and hues conveyed ? " Who can flower-markings see — * Illumed by sympathy. Nor know their feelings pierce too deep To find their vent in eyes that weep ? Question the new-blown rose. Whence come the deeper glows Of colour-streaks that mark each leaf With varied tints in soft relief? * Cowper saw an indwelling divinity in every "freckle, streak, or stain " on his favourite flowers. FLOWER THOUGHTS. 127 Are they the dainty trail, The striping dark or pale, Of Nature's fairy colour-brush, Heightening each hue with richer blush ? Note the soft halo shed, The gloss each leaf o'erspread. Conveying a sense of tender glow We only feel, but cannot know. Ask the rathe snowdrop shy That whispers, " Spring is nigh," Whence, 'neath the cold besodden earth. Gained it such hues of heavenly birth. Though it no answer yield. We know what is revealed In lustrous pearl-cups edged with green — An answer mute, but not unseen. Is not the contrast such As man's deep feelings touch. Between the " drop " of beauty rare And the black soil and frozen air ? Who is not moved to see, With dire adversity, Some fair being struggle, human-bred. New life extorting from the dead ? Say not such flowers clear, " The radiance we show here Is at our arduous efforts' cost. In part succeeding and part lost ? " 128 FLOWER THOUGHTS. Mark, too, the struggle keen In plant- as man-lot seen Of tender, fairer growths that strive With all their power — to keep alive. Striving ofttimes in vain. As men in yearning pain, With coarser natures, fierce to claim All weal, all blessing, without shame. And when such fair growths die We hear their unbreathed sigh — " We would have flowered, but we have failed. By too fierce rivalry assailed." As many a human soul, O'erpowered by life's dole. Droops mutely, with a growing crave For the sweet stillness of the grave. So doth the meanest flower Appeal by varied power To feelings deeper than the source Whence human tears begin their course. Let all such pulses, stirr'd By Fancy fair, make heard The myriad speech of myriad flowers, Their thought-realm making one with ours. C 129 ) THE ELEGY OF THE ROSE-LEAVES. Circling round their parent tree As a chaplet fair to see, Rose-leaves breathed this elegy — " Breathed," I mean, in whispers meet Of their fragrance passing sweet, Odours which my ears did greet : ***** Our life, o'erhastened by the sun, Too soon is don.e ; And, fallen from our mother-tree. Here grouped are we. Late we adorned her verdant crest As queen full drest ; Now we enwreath, in duty meet, Her lovfed feet, Happy, when living, to bestow Our radiant glow, And happy, dying e'en, to prove Our filial love, As courtiers kneeling round our own Dear mother's throne. Our paling splendours still attest How she was- drest ; K I30 THE ELEGY OF THE ROSE-LEAVES. Our fragrance still we waft around Her garden ground, Returning her life-gift in death — Our fragrant breath. Though fading now, our hue beseems Its livelier gleams. Thus hue and fragrance meetly blent Prove our descent ; Both with consentient voice disclose Our kindred rose, And, dead as living, we declare How bright and fair The parent tree from which we came, And spread her fame. ( 131 ) UNDER THE SNOW. Oh, coldly glisteneth the frozen glow, Though lustrously white, of the fallen snow. But barren of growth as the barren sea. The desert sand, A brine-soil land, Or whatever barrenness else there be. Who could suppose that the dead-white snow Life-giving impulses should bestow ? That, under its glistening ice-wove veil, The prick and thrill. The mastering will, Of Nature and springtide begin to prevail ? Yet well we know that under the snow, Its crust and its chill, far, far below. Hidden impulses stir and move The fibry thread, The rootlet half dead. Prompting their rise to the world above. Under the snow, under the snow, A warmth bestirs, though its progress be slow. 132 UNDER THE SNOW. Which eye cannot see, though the mind may guess, Whose secret force Pursues its course With an ever-increasing, buoyant stress. Under the snow, under the snow. Spring-germs quicken and burgeon and grow, As though each seed to itself had said, " Now must I rise To the blue, sunn'd skies From the moist dark womb of my winter bed." Under the snow, deep under the snow. In her secret offices Nature, I trow, Her schemes and plans elaborates well. There her colours are mixed. Fair forms are fixed, Whose beauty the spring and the summer will tell. Who, then, the source of summer would know Must search for it under the winter snow — The green of the trees, the fragrance of flowers. Each manifold hue That adorns anew With wealth of beauty the summer bowers. And well it may be that under the snow The obstruction cold that represses the flow Of human yearnings for ampler life May add to their strength. Till, ripe at length. They find their free outlet with blessing rife. (133 ) 'HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." A REMINISCENCE OF A LONDON COURT. Crossing one morn a well-known London court, For vice and squalor of an ill-report, And picking heedful steps amid the filth, The noisome harvest of o'ercrowding's tilth, My steps were stayed. As one amazed I stood. Of consciousness bereft — its local mood. Had I been sudden spirited away To scenes as unlike these as night and day — To verdant meadows with spring flowers gay ; To bosky dells, soothed by the liquid chant Of mountain brooks — strains suited to their haunt ; To heath-clad moors, or woods, or mountain sides. Or elsewhere where wild Nature most abides ? For all at once there rang, In startling onrush as a bell-peal clang. Above the dull roar of the neighbouring street, Notes of a lark that sang In strains so passionately loud and sweet It seemed as if celestial tones my ears did greet. Startled at first by the mellifluous flood Of sweet bird harmony, spellbound I stood ; 134 "//£ SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." As if I needed first to realize, What smote me with bewildering surprise. No day-dream was the cause That thrilled my ears with musical delight — The sweet bird-descant without stay or pause : Its source was in my sight. Across the court from where I entered, hung Nigh to a costermonger's open door, A willow cage ; over it was flung A few wild flowers, faded ; on the floor A broken, withered turf was placed. Whereon the tuneful minstrel stood Which that poor lodging graced. Drawing near, I watched intent, As though I had been carved in wood, The gushing outpour of that music-flood On its sweet carolling the minstrel bent ; A tuneful energy that almost rent. The fog-bound circuit of the grimy court, Piercing the ears of those who gazed Upon the songster half-amazed, And stopping unkempt children in their sport. Its tiny form with ardour seemed to throb. Although methought each ampler gush. Each louder, more sustained music-rush Seemed followed by a sob. Its feet and wings beat out a tremulous time To its descant sublime ; "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." 135 And thus it sang with quivering passion high, As though it minded were to soar, Unto heaven's very door ; And as in name, so eflfort, cleave the sky. Yet scant were the inspirings meet, (Compared with those its uncaged comrades greet, Who mount from verdant turf or heathery moor. And upward to the sunlit azure soar), 'Wliich prompted such celestial feat Instead of verdant sward was the torn piece Of turf, that haply had been green. Though intervening weeks of time Some surplusage of London grime, And much deposit of its slime — A hideous compound of foul soot and grease, Had made its rural origin scarce seen. And as for pleasant woods and fields. The gladness which pure Nature yields, For these, alas ! a dark, befogg'd, and grimy court, Where wretched domiciles of men Conspired to form a murky den ; Where vice-united, might consort. The votaries of lawless cruel sport, — Callings that slunk from sun-lit human ken. Nor was there aught of azure-glory high T' inspire a bird whose true goal was the sky. A patch of dingy, fog-infected cloud, A sordid, filthy shroud. 136 "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." Befitting the foul court it roofed, While heaven's own blueness it aloofed. Were scarce an object to attract, And urge a heaven-enamoured minstrel to enact His keen, aspiring part. With fitting eagerness of voice and heart. Yet was the sweet bird-song A blithesome carol, radiant and strong ; Except that sometimes after singing long, And at a hurried tremulous rate It seemed somewhat to palpitate. Sad premonition of his nearing fate. For on the morrow's morn returning. To the same dingy court. With sweet remembrance, still burning Of yesterday's sweet song, and yearning For further music of such radiant sort, I paused, listening 'mid the din, The street without, the court within ; But nothing now I heard Of the loud carol of that joyous bird — Nought but the dull loathsome human roar Its strain had partly quelled the day before. I drew towards the well-remembered spot. The coster's home. I saw the cage still there. But now the man, upstanding on a chair, Was in the act, clearly a grievous lot, Of taking down the cage from off its nail. "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATHS 137 I needed not the sky-bird's fate inquire, The cage disclosed a piteous tale — The bird lay dead upon the piece Of ragged turf, besmeared with London grease. Could fate more earthly, dire, A bird befal, By song, and form, and flight, and, all Fitted to heaven's own radiance to aspire. With grief and pity deeply stirr'd, I asked, " What's happened to the bird ? " " Poor Dick," replied the man with trenibling breath, " Is gone — he sung hisself to death. Ah, sir, he wur a bird to sing ; He'd beat, I'm sure, most anything That ever ope'd a beak or wore a wing. But never did I hear 'im in such voice. His note so clear, his song so choice. As yesterday all through. You heard 'im in the morning, sir, say you ? Well, on he sung, until the afternoon. The same wild gushing, madly rushing tune. And started it again to-day, Though in a weaker sort of way. Till breakfast time, and then he stopp'd, And on his perch he feebly hopp'd. Then from his perch he fell and died." His voice grew tremulous, and the fellow cried. I, too, felt moisture on my cheek, And for a moment did not speak ; Again he spoke — a tear brushed quick aside : 138 "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." " What ailed the bird, to sing in that wild way Just upon dying — blest if I can say ; He'd spent most likely all his breath, So he just sung hisself to death." » » * * * Homeward returning through the crowded street, I mused upon the coster's words ; They touched tenderly responsive chords Within me. Back returned the death-song sweet Which yesterday my wondering ears did greet. And now I marvelled more, Than I had done before. What pulse of joy or feeling stirr'd the strain Which seemed the outgush of some blissful pain ? Did the sweet songster know, And knowing, did his vocal rapture glow The more intense ? He was departing hence — Was his swan-song a peean of joy, Forecasting his near freedom from annoy Of all incongruous sounds and sights ? Was there some glimmering sense Of other more befitting bird-delights ? Did his uplifted eye, Piercing the fog roof of the grimy court. See an unclouded sky Of heaven-aspiring birds the meet resort ? Thus were his melody tuned by distant thrill, A far-off impulse did his bosom fill. "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." 139 Not to that court addressed, Was the sweet requiem that closed his life, But to a home of rest Serene, and far removbd from the strife Of greed and crime which did the spot infest, Some fair bird-" island of the blest." There it might find, In startling contrast from its grimy den, True scope for song and vision now confined By smoke and filth, discoloured homes of men. There, too, the inciting stings. The soaring instincts of his restless wings, Would find full vent. Commensurate with their natural intent. It could not be But that wings meant the wingfed to be free. To rise and soar. As near as might be to heaven's sunlit door. Not hopping from the cage perch to its floor. What impulses to song, As such a yearfiing could be strong ; No wonder if such rapturous longing stirr'd The whole joy-gamut of the bird ; No marvel, so unwonted was its glee. Such fierce abandon marked its minstrelsy. Or haply, meant the song-defiance loud A dying protest ; it remained uncowed By adverse influences circled round ? That its brave heart could still aspire. Beyond its actual sordid bound, 140 "HE SUNG HISSELF TO DEATH." That it could glow with stirring of heaven's fire While close enchained to earth's most loathsome mire. Was this the rend'ring of the song That thrilled that dismal spot the whole day long ? " Though Nature destined me to mount on high, And fill with joy the summer sky, Yet fate's malific power Hath falsified sweet Nature's dower. And left me in this dingy den to die ; Yet mean I still to sing. As if all unimpeded were my wing, And I breathed buoyantly the sweets of spring. Till song and life, expiring in one breath, Both end in death." Or, lastly, was that dying song a rapt farewell, A tuneful, radiant lark-befitting knell, To those who failed to tell The meaning of the music that so long Pierced the dull hearing of the unwashed throng ? Mayhap the memory left, As falls when men are of some good bereft, Might stir a keener sense To feelings dulled and dense Of goodness, beauty — all that glorious world Which in the skylarks music is unfurled. Certain — if 'prisoned larks must sing, To crowded, dingy human dens. As if far skyward, on untiring wing. They breathed an atmosphere all unlike men's ; "HE SUNG HISSEL'F TO DEATH." 141 And if their 'prisoned song must be As full of buoyancy and glee, As though the cagfed birds were free — Then didst thou, minstrel dead, do well thy duty, Uttering joyous strains of love and beauty With spent, and yet resolved dying breath, " Singing," as thy owner said, " thyself to death." ( 142 ) EBB AND FLOW. All things living life do show By perpetual ebb and flow. ^ons come and seons go, Their courses marked by ebb and flow. Nature's pulse beats high or low With alternate ebb and flow. And with Nature's pulse e'en so Veer men's lives with ebb and flow. Rhythmic, whether fast or slow, Their progressive ebb and flow. Nations wane, or rise and grow. By the self-same ebb and flow. Erring men both reap and sow With recurrent ebb and flow. EBB AND FLOW. 143 Systems largely to and fro Their life attest by ebb and flow. Truths alternate pale and glow With continual ebb and flow. Of existence all we know Is its ceaseless ebb and flow. \ ( 144 ) THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. The year is dying, Around his bed we watch the end now nighing ; We mark each gasp by sympathy's soft sighing. Your finger lay Upon his failing pulse ; from thence you may Detect the hasting of his life away. The year is old, His grave is dug in time's huge churchyard cold. To mix with all past years in common mould. His strength is spent, His stalwart form has long been worn and bent ; His death we cannot stay, though we lament. His beard so white, His pinched and shrunken visage, all unite Foreboding of his exit at midnight. His deep-sunk eye Seems with its glazfed, far-off look t'espy Things long remote — stone-blind to objects nigh. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 145 One skinny hand Points a lean finger, as to some far land ; One holds an hour-glass with fast-ebbing sand. Not long ago We watched on expectancy's tip-toe His birth ; now we regard his dying throe. Mysterious then. He hid his face and treasure from pr)ang men. Now ope are all his secrets to their ken. Kind or unkind, As he was to us, we are not now blind To act-avouched intentions of his mind. Toll now the bell, Bewail the passing year with sobbing knell. Let every tongue his genuine merits tell. Now, he is dead ; The last sad stroke of midnight, as it sped, Both knell and requiem for the dying said. His eyes now close ; Fold his lean arms in seemliest death-pose. Make fit the dead year for his long repose. Then with due care For his immediate obsequies prepare ; His grave with bye-gone years now let him share. L 146 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. Next, read his will ; Note well what purpose he would fain fulfil, What teaching by his life he would instil. Some legacy He surely left behind for you and me ; How much, what kind, we in due time shall see. So to the past — Our duty rendered — we, 'tis time, now haste ; And at the new year's feet our fealty cast. The old year gone. We turn — as changing men have ever done — From the set orb — to greet the rising sun. ( 147 ) NEWNESS OF LIFE. I WOULD not change for any other dower Of feeling, thought, or fancy's subtle power The sensibility for ever keen To Nature's signs and wonders heard or seen. I guard against dread memory's listlessness, The hardening of the tender wonder-stress Continued frequency is wont to yield Throughout the range of men's sensation-field. So doth the sense of being, its why and whence Not less become, but ever more immense In the large vistas which maturing thought Through many patient pondering years have wrought. To me the world is more a fairy-land To-day, more strangely and grotesquely grand Than when, a puzzled child, I first began The beauteous, riddling wonderment to scan. Each golden sunrise stirs a pleasure new, Each sunset claims fresh recognition due, The changing glories of the clouds impart Increasing ravishment to eye and heart. hS newness of life. Returning summers smile with newer zest, The last spring glory ever seems the best, Each tree's new green glows greener than the old, And fresher hues and beauties flowers unfold. The ocean's mighty marvels now are more Than when, in childish dread, I paced its shore ; Its strangeness, vastness, wildness, stir and strife. Its ever changing moods — its myriad life. The starry heavens appear still more sublime. Their boundless reach of number, space, and time Induce a tremulous awe far more intense Than when they first appalled my youthful sense. To Nature-culture heedfully pursued. Her glories grow more glorious, long reviewed ; Her marvel in its strangeness asks more awe, Her beauty in its lustre owns less flaw. " With brains," the painter in the story said He mixed his colours ; they were live not dead. With brains, too, we must Nature's fair hues mix, When on our mental canvas we would fix Her rarest beauties, nor alone with brains. But tenderest sympathy her treasured gains Must add to form the mingled sentiment That yields to Nature-sense its full content. NEWNESS OF LIFE. 149 That sense, enriched with thought and feeling grows, And in their combined lenses Nature shows With tenfold brilliancy of form and hue. Each aspect seeming still more bright and new. To such deep sense of Nature all things yield. Not visual impress only, but that sealed From common gaze — the vivifying soul That makes the universe one living whole. FAITH. ( 153 ) THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. I. The Start. " Through all thy life strive ever for the Truth; This is man's holiest guerdon, and his best, Life's only function that stays wisdom's test." Such was the pious rede I learned in youth. And I deep stirr'd, for that supremest sooth, Straightway began a long and arduous quest ; And long pursued it with increasing zest, Serving as he who serves one void of ruth. "Where is the Truth?" I asked, of which men speak. " What path is that whereon I should her seek ? " My Truth I deem what in my mother's eyes Seems voiced, or in her tongue tender and wise ; Nay, can a child embrace Truth's guiding norm. In fairer guise than a good mother's form. II. Varied Views of Truth. But on the growing youth life looms more large, And with enlarging life Truth grows more broad ; A varied route now seems Truth's ocean road, Rousing, mayhap, his energies letharge. 154 THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. Who'd glide through life on Cleopatra's barge ? Many I found the routes to Truth's abode, Hence zeal and care I dared not let corrode, Now of Truth's wider sea I cleaved the marge. Thus came to me the anxious age of choice, When I behoved to mark Truth's own clear voice Among the world's wide roar ; that course to steer Which daily to Truth's haven draws more near. So cautiously I chose upon Truth's chart The course most following my childhood's start. III. Truth's Course. Men say the course of Truth is ever straight, Meaning, perhaps, that straight it ought to be : Nay, is, in pure idea or theory — Of mundane facts, the hyper-mundane state. But in reality, which doth abate Ideal glamour, like a ship at sea Truth often steers its course unevenly — A tortuous zigzag, at unequal rate. For Truth, to face opposing winds, must tack ; The popular gale beats rarely on her back. Then must she her undevious course so steer, As Falsehood's shoals and currents not to near ; So seeming wayward. Truth preserves her course. Onward impelled by strange resistless force. THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. 155 IV. Experience. My devious course I mean not to rehearse, Nor tell how oft I trimm'd my modest sail, So I might catch and use the wayward gale To gain Truth's port. Nor yet could I coerce. Into the narrow limits of this verse, The rocks and shoals, which might almost avail To make my voyage to Truth's harbour fail, Or by sad wreckage turn it to my curse. Let it suffice, my well-meant enterprise Than other such attempts, was not more wise ; Like all truth-seekers, oft was I deceived. And falsehood's glamour for pure Truth believed, Yet I persisted, in the assured trust, That if I sought for Truth— find Truth I must. V. Truth found. After long painful quest, at last I found What I at least as Truth supreme must deem ; Nay, what Truth is, and not what she might seem. Yet did her presence somewhat me confound. Strange was the radiance that her beauty crowned, As things long heard of, seen, flash a new gleam ; Or as the light makes real the morning dream. When sleepers in half-slumber are half-drowned. iS6 THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. Then learnt I, Truth seems strange to human sight, If haply overpowering be its light, Until with use the vision gain more strength, And man upon Truth's self can gaze at length ; So questioned I at first, " Is this the Truth, Which I have eager sought from early youth ? " VI. Strangeness of New Truth. New Truth seems ever strange, however fair, Except by most her Truthdom be professed ; So for a while I deemed my search unblest. For that my find the fair name did not bear Of Truth confessed : being, as she was, most rare. Wherefore men said, " This product of thy quest Is not the Truth, but in her vesture dressed — A lie, as all her attributes declare." Then answered I, " That mine is not your Truth But stirs my joy, though once it moved my ruth ; But truthfully to truth- search given, my mind, Whate'er it be, I must approve my find. Content am I with this : I know fall well No other Truth threw o'er me such a spell." THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. 157 VII. The Criteria of Truth. Then mused I on the reasonings of my foes : — What are Truth's tests ? What is that mastering force Which binds conviction firmly to her course ? Each man on this must witness what he knows. And I perceived — for this my Truth I chose — 'Twixt light and dark it made me most divorce, To solve earth's puzzles it claimed most resource, And offered from earth doubts the most repose. Besides — for Truth, methinks, must sate the heart, And of sweet Fancy's play, too, form a part — I found my Truth well ministered to these, And tlius my varied yearnings served to please. In brief: best Truth is that which most rest brings, Best hght which lightens most earth's murkiest things. VIII. Must Truth be kept or communicated? Truth then being found — so far as one might find, Seize, form, and hold — part of the Infinite, Another problem now beset my sight. And with its questing exercised my mind. 158 THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. Shall he who knows what 'tis to have been blind, And knows as well what blessed his eyes with light, Keep for himself what made him see aright, Haply, what was ordained for all mankind ? Since this new Truth hath blessed me, shall I yield To craven fear, lest being to man revealed, My treasure might perchance be spurned and mocked ? Nay, though men mostly keep their treasures locked, Truth were not mine, unless I might impart, And hence will I proclaim it on the mart. IX. Truth on the Mart. So took I to the market my true thought. Slow mellowed product of a wealth of years, Sunn'd by warm effort and bedewed by tears. I reasoned — on the mart where Truth is sought By thinking men, this haply may be bought. For this Truth's ripest fruit to me appears. Alas ! no mart I found — nay, 'some with jeers My truth disdained — said others, " It is nought." Another said, " My friend, your Truth is old. Sell Truth which hitherto hath been untold." " Nay," said a third, " it hath but too much youth." Then said a friend, " Men care not for the Truth Divorced from use and gain. Truth, like pure gold. Must be alloyed ere it be used or sold." THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. 159 X. Truth alloyed. " So from the mart take home thy Truth so dear, Abate its pureness and thy hasty joy, Mix well thy smelted treasure with alloy Of metals old and toughened by long wear. " Take customed thought — Tradition's morbid fear Of growth or change. Faith's ancient forms employ. Nor fear thy Truth's real essence to destroy So as Truth semblance it may still appear. " No sane man takes to market what is new, Whose worth is known and treasured by but few, Nor deem thou Truth wears an unveiled face. For the coarse crowds that throng the market-place ; They own Truth-search forget not, neither thwart. Thou didst not find thy Truth upon the mart." XI. Murmuring. So urged my friend ; and I, disconsolate. Upon his harsh advice began to muse. Much of his plea I darfed not refuse, And my new ardour somewhat 'gan to abate. Yet soon I answered, " It doth seem Truth's fate To have «mall worth, compared with things men use For sordid purposes — for this day's news, Or for news hoped for of to-morrow's date. i6o THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. " Bat when into the mart I took my Truth 'Twas my sole wish, like the blind hope of youth, That men should note her lustre and admire, Possessed as I by love's inburning fire. Nor did I mean to sell my Truth for aught, But for like pains wherewith I had her bought." XII. Resolution. My Truth must I then blend with base alloy, Because men prize it not unmixfed, pure ? Shall I use falsehood as a human lure, Or earthy dross as tested gold employ ? What were this, but my life-work to destroy. Its sacred task as worthless to abjure, Jo urge that Falsehood than Truth's self was truer. To rob me of my Truth-imparted joy ? Never ! let those who will sophisticate The Truth, as knaves man's food adulterate. Not recking the mal-nurture or the plaint Of living organs clogg'd by poison's taint ; At least I will not offer, for mere ruth. What I dare not avouch as provfed Truth. XIII. Further Advice. Then, said my friend, " Thou readest not aright, The record of Truth's progress in the vast Historic page — nor in thy mental past : Truth springs not upon men as the new light THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. i6i " Of tropic sunrise flashes down the night ; But steals with luminous growth more broad than fast, And slanting shadows wide and far doth cast, Fitting the gradual sentience of man's sight. " Bethink ! Thy truth, at first with error blent. Itself approved — though far was thine intent On partial unripe truth thy gaze to fix, Or with its purity alloy to mix ; Thy mind the smelting fire which Truth's crude ore, Fused from its, dross, with labour long and sore." XIV. Conclusion. To all such pleas I turned a stone-deaf ear ; Abhorrent to my soul was Truth debased. And purposely her beauty fair defaced. So to man's false ideals she might come near. Nor, though a devious course I chanced to steer, Dared I affirm Truth thus might best be chased ; Rather my own blurr'd chart I had erased. And Truth's course marked anew with lines more clear. But be it, most men now my thought refuse, I will not for their pleasure Truth abuse, But show it as a higher, rarer light. To men whose clearer vision crave the sight. Some time, mayhap, others who make like quest, May deem the Truth I found, of all Truths, best. ( l62 ) ON DEFINING GOD. Observe yon concave blue, That seems to close around our human view, And ends by sun and star Our keenest survey of those heavens afar. And yet we know full well. False is the specious tale our senses tell ; That is no azure sky, Or solid vault, that meets our lifted eye. What curtains round our gaze, The background of the sun or starry maze, Is but blue-tinted light That veils from us the aerial infinite. And so, when we define Great heaven's immensity by verbal sign, We act as though our bent. Were here again to feign 2, firmament. Words in array we place. And deem therewith we see God face to face. Poor fools, and Wind ; not seeing Our words but mask and hide His unsearched Being. ( i63 ) THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ENERGIES. I WOULD not know, if knowledge fitly might All solaceful beliefs veil from my sight ; A clouded day is better than dark night. I would not search, if searching surely grew To find the falsehood, " There is nothing true," And for life's labyrinth, we have no clue. I would not think, if thinking always taught Sense of futility in all things thought ; So thought, by thinking, brought itself to naught. I would not feel, if each true passion's power Served but to prove how barren were its dower ; How all sweet feehngs pall or turn to sour. I would not hope, if hope's most ardent strain Reaped merest hopelessness as its sole gain ; Who would take physic to increase his pain ? Man's energies, with mighty promptings rife, Must needs achieve some worthy end of strife. To still the fretful unrest of his life. i64 THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ENERGIES. 'Tis true, his best achievements have their scope, However unbounded be his faith and hope ; Beyond His arms full stretch, no man can grope But in its sphere each ardour finds some sway, Some fruit men still may reap of e*;h essay ; At least each effort doth its fret allay. Then, in the pursuit of the True and Real, I fain would know and search, and hope and feel, To furthest scope of each — until its seal Of due achievement answer my appeal. ( i6S ) WHAT IS RELIGION? (AFTER SCHLEIERMACHER.) Not a moral codex taught, In legal maxims hard and cold, By legal' minds together brought, From ethic teachers new or old. Nor yet a mode or form of thought, Of God or man, the world or life, By various diff'ring systems wrought. Inducing hate and wordy strife. Religion is a secret fire. Kindling spontaneous in the breast, The soul's instinctive blind desire Tofeeliis God, and be at rest. Religion is a sense Divine, Perception of the Infinite, The pure heart's pulse, the only sign, To mark its being or prove its might. i66 WHAT IS RELIGIONS Above, below, and all around. In thing without, in thought within. Is pure Religion's hallowed ground. The temple we must worship in. To lean in trust upon the Power, Through all the universe made known, This is the soul's divinest dower, This is Religion — this alone. ( i67 ) WHERE IS RELIGION? (AFTER SCHLEIERMACIIER.) Not in the text of Holy Writ, Or words or writings elsewhere brought, With sacred fire though once up-lit. But now — the mere dead signs of thought Not in a church's rule or plan, Its public prayer or sacred rite, Imperfectly devised by man. To body forth the Infinite. Not in confessions nor in creeds. Or lifeless dogmas cut and squared. Or pious acts or ritual deeds, For quickening holy life prepared. Such formal systems we discard. No vital warmth can they inspire. Like lava streams, now cold and hard. Which erst flowed on — a living fire. 1 68 WHERE IS RELIGIONS Such burnt-out systems have we seen, Embers instead of burning glow, The ashes tell where fire hath been, No further use — cold embers know. But in the heart, experience-taught, Of faith and hope and love which tells In th' infinite of human thought, There, there alone, Religion dwells. QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (IV.). THE PIOUS HINDU'S PATH OF PERFECTION, Quotation. " Alas ! Thus it always is with man. The source of evil is within us. Egotism deludes us with the feeling of possession when there is nothing to possess. This is the great enemy — the Myness in me." * Comment. Self-haunted, I mourn my most piteous late, In perfection I would, if I could, become great ; But I cannot, since I neither can quell nor make flee, My deadliest torment — the Myness in me. It cleaves to me closely wl^erever I go, At all times 'tis near, a persistent foe ; It hears with my ears, with my eyes it doth see, It steals all my senses — this Myness in me. * "The Bhagavad Gtta," translated by Mohini M. Chatterji, M.A., p. i6. I70 THE PIOUS HINDU'S PATH OF PERFECTION. Then incursion it makes to the region within, All consciousness thieves — a most grievous sin, From its ravishment reason nor feeling is free, AH my being it leads captive — this Myness in me. To crush it I strive with the whole of my power, I repel its vitality hour to hour, When it claims recognition, I never agree, I give always the lie to the Myness in me. Sometimes by starvation its strength I bring down, In thought's profound depths I its energies drown, In vain, for I find by dire weakness's fee, I cannot slay the Myness and not kill the Me. I own I have nothing, nor well can I guess, How I came to suppose there are things I possess ; Indeed, a delusion it almost seems to be, To assert that I have either Myness or Me. Placed thus in a strait, my duty I know. But 'tis hemm'd in by limits I cannot o'erthrow ; I fear it is true, though I must disagree, My Myness will last just as long as my Me. ( 171 ) LIFE AND THOUGHT. Unsought came Life to me, And with it brought, A precious, perilous gift — The gift of Thought. Life grew, and with its growth Grew also Thought, Like twin-bom beings, from birth To rivalry wrought. First, Life claimed precedence. In that it sought To merge in its own being. The being of Thought. Said Life, " No useful end Is gained by Thought, And all its doubts and quests Come but to naught." But Thought in turn replied, " Life cannot choose But live J nor yet can Thought Its subtler being refuse. t72 LIFE AND THOUGHT. " By direful stress ondriven, I still must quest, Though answer full and true, Ne'er bring me rest. " Thou, Life, may St easy live, Deprived of Thought, Nay, myriads pass through life To think untaught. "Yet to man's life doth Thought, Though vain its quest. Lend all the power that makes It nobly blest.'' Then, sighing. Life replied, " Too-bounded scope. Poor foolish thought, gives Life For thy great hope. " And space and time, and all That men call being. Are objects much too small For thy far-seeing." To which Thought once more said, " Thus it must be. That Thought can more than Life, And further see. Wherefore thou seest, Life, Howe'er distraught. By her great quest — far higher Than Life is Thought." LIFE AND THOUGHT. 173 Then I at last, well-learned In power of Thought, And worth. of Life — to soothe Their rivalry sought. Thus to the twain said I, " What needs this strife ? Twin mysteries are ye, Both Thought and Life." ( 174 ) VITA BREVIS, ARS LONG A. Brief is Life, while Art is long, Countless truths, some weak, some strong, Crowd around the thinker's feet, All acceptance fair entreat. Brief is Life, while Art is long, Hear the luring syren-song, As Truth's daughters mocking ask Men t' achieve a hopeless task. Brief is Life, while Art is long. See how Science doth prolong Endless vistas as men move. Tracking e'er their viewless love. Brief is Life, while Art is long. Fairest forms of Fancy throng Shaping minds, nor brush nor pen. Could duly render all to men. Brief is Life, and Art is long. What remains for wise and strong ? But as skill shall best impart, Man's brief Life make long with Art. ( 175 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (V.). VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. Quotation. " She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime, Or if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her." * Comment. Then let heaven stoop, As stoops the eagle that with downward swoop From its empyrean height descends. And to its weak-wing'd offspring lends (Fluttering, faltering in mid air), Sustaining and paternal share Of pinions equal to the flight Of heaven's supremest height For Virtue now is weak. Or perhaps more truly might I speak, Is feeble grown to human eyes. And estimates — which are but lies. * Milton, Contus. 176 VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. In her true being, Apart from men's perverted modes of seeing. Virtue could no more feeble be. Than power be lacking to the Deity, Or length of aeons to Eternity. But to men's eyes. Clad in their conceptual disguise. Virtue is feeble grown, Lacking in strength and tone. Too weak to stand alone. Void of inherent power to bless, Or to incur temptation's stress. Dependent on some mightier power. For all her vigour or her wisdom's dower. A puny sickly thing, That can mount only by an alien wing ; A helpless, sightless being. That must be led by others' sense of seeing. Of old it was not so. As human records show : Once all wise men did deem Virtue herself supreme ; She was Heaven's own ally, Co-natured and eternally. Nay Virtue gave to Deity the right O'er reasoning mortals to assert his might, Her sanction was the primal source Of the Divinity's divinest force. VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. 177 Men did not then require For serving Virtue lucrous hire : They did not say, As hirelings clamouring for pay, " Now every virtuous action must we weigh. And its extremest worth We must be paid ; by preference, now on earth, If not, in heaven, upon some future day." What noble men then said Was this ; or rather what they sang, In duteous strains that far outrang The music of the " sphery chime " Of that primordial time. Ere Virtue from the earth had fled, Or ere her human rule had 'minished, When she gave law to heaven's eterne array, And e'en Omnipotence bowed to her sway. " Supreme is Virtue, good and true. All her behests we gladly do ; This is our honour, as our due, Our wisdom, truth, and goodness too. " No wage we ask — we crave no pay, Or now or at some future day ; Virtue's true guerdon we gainsay When baser, added wealth we pray, " Heaven gave us Virtue as the best Of all its gifts to make us blest ; VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. Our souls its worth supreme attest : We in their judgment joy to rest. "Virtue is health — but he would rave Who, when health's laws availed to save Him from disease, or from the grave Some added guerdon still should crave. " Virtue is bliss — but who should ask, While in its joyance he doth baskj That heaven would give — as for a task, Due payment — reason must enmask. " Virtue hath self-sufEcingness, Inherent is her power to bless. And we in our worst trials' stress Her own calm solace must confess. " We need no future to make good. What is our soul's e'er present food ; Those who for self-ends have pursued Virtue, are not her true-born brood." So men once held, and haply yet a few Still do so deem, and Virtue fair pursue With the pure selflessness that is her due. But in men's common notions — now, alas ! Virtue hath come to quite another pass ; She must be fortified by props and guards, She must be bribed by wages and rewards. Paid down, too, in a medium not her own, VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. 179 Base coin of aliens to herself and throne, Else is esteemfed bankrupt and undone. Like a decaying merchant, she must keep afloat Her trade by many a promissory note. Now every virtuous act Hath its own price as by a huckster's pact ; The virtuous deed or word is good no longer In its true self, each must be rendered stronger By earthly bliss or sordid gain, Or unreal riddance from corporeal pain. While for a few short virtuous years men ask the fee Of bliss consummate through eternity. This is, I trow, the strain — Breathing mere lust of gain, Which men now vent amain ; At least which shares the larger part Of every world-inspired heart. " With men of old we do agree. Virtue should claim our fealty ; For all her blessings fain would we In adoration bend the knee. "Virtue is great, and we her worth Are taught to celebrate from birth ; Of blessings they shall have no dearth, Who loudly chant her praise on earth. "Virtue is good, for we believe We for her service shall receive Less share of human ills that grieve. And more of profit shall achieve. i8o VIRTUE, PAST AND PRESENT. " In Virtue, then, we deem it best. Our hopes and efforts to invest ; If now we draw not interest, In future time we shall be blest. " Though Virtue's sons know want or care, Or ills still greater have to bear, God will their lot with justice square. And give heaven-bliss to mend earth-fare. " Thus every virtuous word or deed To us seems but the fruitful seed Which shall in time a harvest breed Beyond our hope, desire, or need. " Who, then, would not sweet Virtue praise. And to her honour altars raise. Who blesses us in this world's ways, And gives us heaven for endless days ? " So must the lofty poet mend his rede. And Virtue from her pride of place recede Her mission now is not to make men climb " Higher than the sphery chime,'' But men's earth-avarice to feed, And satisfy their other-worldly greed. ( i8i ) LIFE, AHD DEATH, AND TRUTH. The following sonneted mind-history was written on the death of a personal friend, an ardent and uncompromising truth-seeker, who devoted all his life to the eschatology of the Old and New Testa- ments. After having long maintained that the Apocalypse of St. John found its sole fulfilment in the Fall of Jerusalem, he abandoned that theory, and accepted that mostly favoured by advanced thinkers on the Continent, viz. that the Apocalypses, both of the Old and New Testaments, were based upon dreamy and sanguine views of an impossible future. As he considered the eschatology to be the very centre-point of the New Testament, he was inclined to consider Christianity — apart from its moral teaching — a gigantic illusion. These latter views he incorporated in a work which occupied the last working years of his life, and a copy of which he held in his hand just before his death, with the repeated vaunt, " If this is not the truth, there is no truth." It may be adde'd, that in former years he had been just as certain of his earlier and, perhaps, more probable theory. I. The Argument. " Truth is the fruit of life, the crown of death, And living, dying, none more blest than he Who plucks that noble fruitage from life's tree. And such, thank God, am I " — with halting breath But radiant face the dying man thus saith. None worthier sure to claim Truth's victory, For of its gospel warmer votary Truth's storied records nowhere witnesseth. i82 LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. Thus death, now nearing, seemed the crown of life, Co-mated sequently as fruit and flower, The victor's wreath adorning warrior strife. Truth-wooing, crownfed by her wedded dower ; Meet union in a world by wisdom plann'd, Of cause and sequence in one holy band. • II. The Conviction. " If this be not the Truth, Truth is there none." So spake Truth's witness, dying, all the while He clasped caressingly with placid smile His written record of Truth's battle won. The printed outcome of life's best work done. Noblest conviction, if all free from guile. The last recording stone of many a mile Of life's long road from rise to set of sun. Much-cherished volume, fruit of many hours Of patient thought and eager industry. Rendered effective by keen mental powers. Who would decry such fruit of knowledge's tree ? Alas, that now such fruit may men deceive. As once in Eden it beguiled Eve ! III. Truth fixed by Death. Death slits the fine-spun silken woof of thought, The while it severs man's coarse warp of time. And gives last thoughts, which with last moments rhyme, A permanence they might not else have wrought. LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. 1S3 For while thought lives the thinker will be taught, And germs erst cultured in his early prime Will ever train to ripeness more sublime, Till thought with life in time both come to naught. So had the aged thinker's life endured To after years, obeying its customed norm ; No guarantee could haply have assured. Of Truth he had not found still nobler form, But death fast sealed his latest truth-impress. And this with his last breath he fain would bless. IV. Truth-Search. Man's thought at starting takes its lonely road, In part, long worn, his elders' well-trod way. In part, self-traced, the course his light of day Suggests as best befitting to be trod By one who knows things in his special mode. Thus onward led by Truth's inspiring ray. His mental journey he begins t' essay. Hoping its end shall be Truth's own abode. But as he onward moves from scene to scene. He claims each outlook as his very own. Nor recks of change of view from what has been To prospects new, content that he alone. In every change, preserves his mode of sight, Or, what he once saw wrong, he now sees right. i84 LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. V. The Personal Nature of Truth. The eye but sees, however keen its powers, That which its own clear vision truly yields, The verdure of the forests or the fields, The many-coloured glory of the flowers ; And each outlook of dark or sunny hours, Is bounded by the lid each eye that shields. And by the visual power the organ wields ; No other eye can share its secret dowers. So Truth to each must have its private bound. The scene within the seer's own purview ; And what the scene is, in its own profound No stranger knows — no stranger ever knew. The Truth to every man is his alone. And brooks no personal rival near its throne. VI. Unity and Multiplicity of Truth. Each Truth is true to him who sees it so ; But, " Truth is one,'' men say, and rightly say. Yet is its oneness like the light of day. Which all things seen doth manifoldly show. And what in myriad guise men can but know. Is seen as one by that pure heavenly ray Which all things views in its inclusive sway, And sees them truly whether men do or no. LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. 185 Nor can of each man's power such private scope Be deemed privation ; howsoe'er his will May soar or fancy, man can never hope His bounds to pass — he must be finite still, No hardship is it, if regarded right, His earth-born limits are not infinite. VII. Possibility of mistaken Truth-Search. Thus what the old truth-seeker, dying, deemed Truth's purest golden ore, his brother men Claimed to have proved once and oft again By partial views to be unsoundly schemed ; Nay, e'en from falsehood to be unredeemed. His Truth's last word, the best work of his pen. To those who of the matter had most ken, Scarce more than error's infant lispings seemed. But this, in sooth, he had himself foreknown, Nor recked the adverse judgments he foreknew ; Mere dread of men the thinker had outgrown, " Truth ever was," he said, " the meed of few." And so he hugg'd his conscious triumph won — " If this be not the Truth, Truth is there none." VIII. Change compatible with Truth-Search. Yet had himself determined years before, Of a quite other — nay, opposing view, Which now he just as strongly held untrue. i86 LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. Although by those best skilled in such lore The earlier found acceptance more and more. His faith, though then misplaced, again was new, And more resolved Truth's guerdon to pursue, As ships once wrecked, again put off from shore. Thus froward thought, advancing knowledge, grows To changed views ; old prospects vanish quite. Or are transformed by what man newly knows. To views as differing as day from night ; Though in thought's varied many-motived range Not always is the best the newest change. IX. The True Meed of Truth-Search. The meed of Truth-search hence we learn to scan, Man's noblest function — 'tis confest by all, The worthiest men most gladly hear its call : Yet in his highest reach, man is but man. His loftiest effort but a human " can." So must his highest Truth-search ever fall Far short of what is truest, and seem small To knowledge that all knowable can span. But duty urges, nay, our bliss is still To seek for Truth by every power we own ; We may, if well-directed be our skill, Enlarge the scope of things humanly known : If not, we still must seek, e'en though unsooth May be our final boast we've found the Truth. LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. 187 X. Objection answered. " Then is Truth-search a mock'ry ! " might some say, If by fruition it be all unblest ; For mortals so ill-placed, 'twere surely best To spend their efforts, through life's little day. On merest dalliance of lust or play. So they might reap due fruitage from their quest, Nor always suffer from the dire unrest Of those who pine in painful yearning's sway. But man is so much moulded of heaven-fire. As soon of mere satiety to sate, And, though his sphere be bounded, his desire Is still to pass from earth through some heaven-gate ; In fine, his highest impulse and content Is search for Truth and Good, though in it he be spent. XI. Truth in the Future World. In search must we then our For-Ever spend. No surety greet us in the aeons to come ? Must eager hope aye wander without home, And in vain craving all its powers expend ? A lot so dire, with goodness who can blend ? So men, all weary with the ceaseless roam, Truth search in Nature, and in printed tome Hope all earth-doTibts with certainty to end. i88 LIFE, AND DEATH, AND TRUTH. Fond dream, mayhap, of those who fail to learn The worth of search for men of finite scope, Who, though Truth's value they in part discern, See not its needs of eager life and hope. If heaven were but satiety's abode. To home, Truth's pilgrim might prefer his road. XII. Infinite Conditions of Infinite Truth. Man's Truth is girt by its own narrow marge. The sphere of outward sense, of inward mind. And if all certain knowledge he would find, As into ocean rivulets discharge. And thus to meteless bounds their own enlarge, So with all earth-things he must leave behind His finite scope — whate'er of his own kind Or personal bounds be laid to human charge. His Reason must be lost and merged quite, A part of the one great all-reasoning whole ; Within the bosom of the Infinite ; Returning to its home, its parent soul. Thus, conscious or half-conscious, haply man Truth in its endless range may somehow scan. ( iS9 ) TO PLOT IN OS ON HIS DEFINITION OF RE VELA TION Alb Kol Keyfrtu opBas, rh ayaShy Kol Ka\hv t^k ifiuxV yioiaSai Afioioidiivai elyai Be^, Srt eKeidev Th KaKbv Kal ij fiotpa Tf erepa Tav tvrtev iiaXKov Ze Tct ovTa t) KdWoi/'fj iffrty, 7] Se erepa (p^ffis rh ditrxpov. — Plotinos, Enneades, I. vi. . "Soistalso fiir Plotin jedes Schone schliesslich eine Gbttliche Offenbarung, bei deren Anblick das Gemiith zur Ahndung des Gottlichen erhohen, zur Andacht gestimmt werden soil." — Plotin's Abhandlung vom Schimen, von Dr. R. Volkmann, p. 23. Ethereal spirit, whose sublime essay, Greek lore illum'd with a diviner ray, Closing in sunset glow its radiant day. As some lone mountain peak that scales the sky. Fitted to catch the sun's rays beaming high, And to reflect them longest when they die. What " Godlike Revelation " is, declare Transcendent leader of the wise who dare Scale heaven's own height and find their wisdom there. Befitting were thy function to define What heaven's unveiling is men call divine. In thine thou but reflectest heaven's sunshine. igo TO PLOTINOS. No lettered volume could exhaust thy view Of " Godlike Revelation," howe'er true, Not less than all heaven's lore its rend'ring due. Nor could some marvellous epoch thee content, A moment of eternal time soon spent. Nor Godlike teacher from the high heavens lent. Nor dogma scheme with mind-enslaving creed, Fitted ambition's loathsome growths to breed. Thy Revelation sense could ever feed. As broad as Nature's unencompassed scope. Transcending earth and heaven's perceived cope, Far as desire could range on wings of hope. ^Vhatever Beauty in that boundless reach Inspired fancy might to mortals teach. Or Reason's grave authority might preach. Far as the seer's clear vision can extend. From earth-born forms to ideal types, and end Where in like Beauty all fair things do blend. Whate'er bestirs our reverence when seen, Whate'er uplifts us to that air serene, Where Beauty reigns the sole eternal queen. Revealed Beauty doth the flower disclose, The dainty lily, or the brilliant rose. Or humbler bloom that by the wayside blows. TO PLOTINOS. 191 Nor Beauty's tale alone fair flowers tell, Of grace and modesty they wield the spell, And sweetness in their tinted cups doth dwell. Revealing prowess hath the lightning beam. Riving the sky with brilliant sudden gleam — A transient glimpse of Nature's might supreme. Fair sunshine also claims Revealing power When earth it glorifies with heaven's best dower, And to new life transmutes the vernal shower. A like unveiling in bird-music thrills, When in responsive souls its myriad trills With sober gladness or with rapture fills. A Revelation gleams from starlit skies, Showering down marvels upon human eyes. And upward lifting souls that tend to rise. Revealed Beauty own the vernal trees. Flashing the sunlight, yielding to the breeze Both song, and motion's myriad harmonies. Nay, e'en the grass's modest emerald blade. Half-gold in sunlight, greener in the shade, For Beauty's Revelation seems well made. 192 TO PLOTINOS. Nor doth man's music, when it stirs man's heart, In Beauty's chorus lack its own due part. Nor any beauteous form of human art. In fine, all Loveliness that lifts man's soul, Sweetens his joy or mitigates his dole, Heavenward attracting, as the magnet's pole. Hath its own part in Revelation's whole. ( '93 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (VI.). , THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS (/.). After Porphyry and Wordsworth. Quotation. " Porphyre dit dans sa Lettre d, Marcella : ' Le meilleur culte qui tu puisses rendre h Dieu c'est de former ton ame h. sa ressemblance ; car seule la vertu 6ihve Fame vers la patrie d'ou elle est issue.' " * " Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither And see the children sport upon the shore And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." f Comment. Once musing, for the hundredth time, O bard, upon thy ode sublime, Pure blend of sage's thought with poet's rhyme, ♦ " Bouillet les Enneades de Plotin," I. p. lii. t Wordsworth, " Ode on Immortality." O 194 THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. And deathless as its theme of Immortality, Methought, though dwelling far inland, I would betake me to the strand Which bounds that vast immortal sea, And closer scan than e'er before . The children sport upon the shore And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. So, sped from wakedness to sleep, I fell into a slumber deep. The while my musings did their course continuous keep. * * » * » Methought I drew towards the shore, And heard commingled with the murm'rous joar Of the immortal ocean's roll, Attuned to one harmonious whole, The merriment of children as at play. The joyous laughter of an infant soul Ere yet the dead'ning, dark'ning dole Of human birth Had quelled its heaven-bom mirth — The shrill mad laugh of fairy, sprite, or fay Whose very spirit-nature makes it gay. Just landed were they in the dawn's first gleam. From tiny skiffs whereof the placid sea Did multitudinously teem ; Nor sooner landed than their rapturous glee, As if bestirred by the novel sight Of the new earth-sun's light Burst forth in spirit descants wild and free. THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. 195 Advancing further on the golden sands, I stood amid those wingbd infant bands, At which revived sight My memory inbreathed heaven-fresh delight ; The intervening years were swept away, As by a magic wand, and once again the day When my infantile consciousness first came to being, And my new-opened eyes began their seeing, Ere questioning awe and wonderment possessed My soul, nor even now laid all to rest — When my new life, though strange With new-born powers and range, Retained its prior being's mirth and gladness, Not yet subdued by earth-engendered sadness. Then also pressed, with force anew, Those hints mysterious, as I older grew (Through gradual earth-engrossment they were few), Of some fair world, whose dim-worn memory Like flashes of an ill-remembered dream. Or as the shadowy outlines of the land doth seem To out-bound vessels far upon the sea ; Vague hintings of some joy I once possessed, Womb-pulses of a thought not come to being. Suggestions of a feeling unexpressed. Dim tracings of fair sights now long past seeing — The momentary flashes which uplight As in a thunderstorm at night Our mental gloom, but being unearthly bright. Leave us but more uncertainty and fright — 196 THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. These chance sporadic impulses of soul Which rive in twain its earth-begotten whole, And make unreal its meaning and its goal, Were all explained now I had reached the strand Washed by the sea that parts it from the land Of its remote nativity, Celestial source of its dispersed activity. It served all Virtue's promptings to explain. Now that I skirted the unmeasured, main Bounding the realm where Virtue hath her reign. Strong impulses to Truth now found their source, When I discerned their home and earthward course ; Now might I realize, too, their heaven-bom force. The Sense of Beauty could seem strange no more, Seeing that I actually paced the shore Whose sea its living freights had hither bore. Men's chance-born yearning for diviner things Stood self-revealed in those light airy wings Of souls new-born, ere earth-dust to them clings. Then said I to these children shy, Whose laughter ceased when I drew nigh, While downward fell each lustrous eye, " I pray you, dear ones, tell to me The secret of your childish glee. Strange am I now to this fair strand. Though I might visit it so readily, THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. 197 My home is now, ah ! far inland, Yet once Uke you I sported on these sands, Toying, like you, and joining hands, A spritely unit of like spritely bands." They answered, " We are full of glee. Since fresh as yet is the glad memory Of our far spirit-home, Whence hither we have come Crossing the surface of yon murm'ring sea. More joyous, too, are we. Lest stranded on this earth And sharing human birth May haply dissipate in part our mirth. So blithe are we, now we have season so to be, And have besides sufficing reason for our glee." " What that fair reason is I pray you tell," Said I ; " for though I once knew well. Yet is my memory now grown somewhat dim." Then, smiling, said they, " Come, That we with spirit-mirth may gladden him. Sing we the joyous hymn Of our far spirit-home." Then, joining hands. They made a circle on the golden sands ; And then with measured step and sprightly dance, Which did the mirthful melody enhance With rhythmic sway and swing Thus did they sing : — 1 98 THE SOME OF HUMAN SOULS. " Our spirit-home is across the sea, Whence we have voyaged, laden with glee. The earth-mates of men for a season to be. "Unladen as yet, our cargoes of joy Thriftily make we their future employ To purify men from earth-ill, and alloy. " Clearly as yet in sweet memory's shrine We foster home-love and remembrance divine, And thus for itself we delay to pine. " Our home is the birth-place of Beauty fair. Which beautifies all things lovely and rare, And this we desire to make men share. " Our home is Truth's native e'er-dwelling place, Where itself it unveils in immortal grace ; Our task is to sow it among man's race. " Virtue there holds omnipotent sway, Giving light and warmth as the mom sun's ray ; Both makes and enlivens earth's everyest day. " Goodness reigns there, in her sphere supreme, Compared with her lustre — we can but deem Her reflection on earth scarce more than a dream. " All growths that are lovely and good and true, There are native and old, though here they be new ; To teach them to men is our function due. THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. 199 " Such is our home, and right glad are we, Denizens of such a home to be, And we mean to return o'er yon aether sea, • When once from earth-servitude we are free." ^ ^ If! % 1^ So weird was their song, full of strange glamourye. Its rhythm and dance by the murmuring sea. I was mastered as if some potent spell. My being's bewitchment by force did compel ; Of memory I was almost bereft, And even self-consciousness scarcely was left. Earth's alien intuitions, strange and rare, Continuous now, seemed natural and fair ; Vague yearnings that within me burned. Their origin obscure and undiscerned, All realized now in a supreme totality, Ravished all sense of earth and earth-mortality. The transient glimpses of a dream once bright. Faint fitful flashes of a far-off light. Concurred in one resplendent glory to unite ; As if heaven's light, refracted by earth's prism, Again had coalesced its seven-fold schism Into its primal ray of purest white. * • » # * Unable my new ardour to restrain. To join their dance and song I was full fain ; My voice uplifted for their witching chants, My feet prepared to tread their rhythmic dance : Of all my self-control the limits broke. But moving, I aroused me, so awoke. ( 200 ) THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS (//.). (Partly) after Plotinos. " ^4vya}^€it Si] ^iKTjV €s irarpfSa, oKTjdeffTepav av TiS irapaKeXevoiTO . . . TlaTfls Se Tiiuv o6ev irapr}\8oii€V, Kul TOTJ)p iKei." — Enneades, I. vi. 8. Compounded is man's life of what seems real, And what doth merely seem On true appeal The shadowy semblance of a restless dream. So musing on Plotinos and his lore, I found myself, as once before, Lapp'd in a dream wherein Fancy's ideal feignings stirr'd within, Assumed as heretofore an outward guise, As of real things discerned by bodily e\ es. Again I stood upon the deathless shore Where breaks the sea that rolls for evermore, But not upon those very sands Where I saw children dance with joined hands ; It was, I ween, a different part In fancy's subtle demarcation. Where souls, their earth work done, were wont to start Upon their homeward embarcation. THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. They came, I saw, in countless shoals, These eager, heaven-returning souls. And yet not all returned to the golden sands, Or launched their skiffs upon the murm'ring sea ; For not a few among their heaven-born bands Had suffered shipwreck fatally, Nor e'er again might see the shore Or ripple, each with wand-like oar. The crystal sea whose waves roll evermore. Ah ! great as was the glee Of those just landed from th' immortal sea, More rapturous still and unrestrained Their joy who after weary travailing had- gained The well-remembered strand To which their skiffs long years before first came to land. But chiefly when beneath the wave Hastily they did them lave That to their joy full vent they gave. For painful was it to remark The contrast, nigh as light and dark. Between the full unsullied glee Of those just landed from the sea And their wan look and aspect worn Who earth-life burdens long had borne. Nay, some were pitiful to view, So wrinkled were they and so stained. That scarce their heaven identity remained Until their lavement due Did all their primal traits renew. THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. One such I ventured to accost, Of mien dejected and lack-lustrous eye, His vacant look seemed to imply That more than most it had been tost On the tempestuous wave of human life : " I prythee, spirit," said I, " tell. What more than common ill hath thee befel In thy comminglement with earth-bom strife, So wan thou seemest, and stained with human ill." Whereon it hasted thus to do my will. " Alas ! my life on this weary earth. Almost from the day of my human birth. As a record of good is of scantiest worth. " Joined to a being whose nature vile Every possible vice combined to defile, While all was masked by profoundest guile, " My native impulses, though heaven bom. By my earthly mate were held in scorn ; All traits of my birth became almost out-worn. " My promptings to virtue and goodness and truth, Were blunted and deafened in early youth, To my mingled horror and anger and ruth. " Had his life dured long I must have died, All losing the nature that heaven supplied, And stained, beyond cleansing of yonder tide. THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. 203 " But haply for me his vicious course, Headlong and lacking both stay and remorse, Ceased ere I lost all my heaven-born force.'' So spake the wan and weary spirit, Wailing the ill incurr'd, The fair page stained and blurr'd. Which erst from heaven it did inherit. And of the others, most bare dents and stains Of earthly trials and vices and pains ; Their wrinkled faces, deep-sunken eyes. Frames stunted to half their normal size, Almost it seemed they aimed to disguise Their lineage of heaven and spirit birth. Beneath the sordid investures of earth. But no sooner laved in the deathless sea, Than from earth defilements at once they were free. Whereupon burst more gladly their former glee. They sang and dancbd, joining eager hands In merry circle weaving bands. And therewith beat with lively feet. Their rhythmic measures on the golden sands. Then took each his skiff as it lay on the shore. And down to the sea they hasted once more. And as they launched forth they lifted their voices, As he who in a transport of gladness rejoices, In a unison tuneful and mellow and strong, They sang with rapture this spirit-song — 204 THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. " Let us flee, let us flee, to our own dear land. Putting forth merrily from this ancient strand ; Our tasks are achieved, and all sated with earth. We return well relieved to the land of our birth. " Let us. flee, let us flee, to our own dear land. We obey willingly our dear Father's command ; We have done His behest, and our earth-travail o'er, We return to His rest and His home evermore. " Joyfully let us flee to our own dear land. Giving vent full and free to our Nature's demand ; Our yearnings on earth now at last find peace. Our plaintive unmirth in heaven's rapture will cease. " In our skiffs let us flee to our own dear land, Each his path o'er the sea by his mystic wand Urging straight course and true for yon home of rest. Where abide ever new all things fairest and best. " Let us flee, let us flee, to our own dear land. Borne have we patiently earth's corroding brand ; Though its stain rife with pain we have washed away, We its mem'ry retain, though we shall not alway. "Hurriedly let us flee to our far-off land. Yearningly as we be, all a home-eager band ; On earth's alien coast we have long since pined — Ah, how gladly we boast, all its woes are behind. As we flee o'er the sea, dimly looms earth's light, Many leagues row must we ere heaven bless our sight ; But our skiffs are fleet and short seems the way. When its course we mete from night towards day.'' THE HOME OF HUMAN SOULS. 205 Such was their song, each oarsman of the band His skiff propelling with his mystic wand In rhythmic unison with all the rest ; Attuned each movement to the joyous strain, As forth they launched hurrying to regain Their primal native home among the blest. Nor did their oar-wands wielded with such grace, Each beat increasing with increasing pace, Make scarce a wrinkle on the crystal face Of the immortal main. But as a bird-wing dimples the glazed pool. Or the last indent of the sculptor's tool Scarcely impinges the smooth marble grain. So the light-ruffled sea was crystal smooth again. Thus fainter grew their song upon the sea. The while, inblent with the soft murm'rous roar, Of placid wavelets lapping soft the shore In interfused harmony. Until by distance silenced, its melodious glee I heard no more. Meanwhile was putting forth another fleet, And ever new arose the self-same strain ; But, as its melody induced pain To souls still chafing in earth's chain, I now was minded to withdraw my stranger feet. And, effort making, the dim phantasy broke And I, or ere I knew the manner how, awoke. ( 206 ) QUOTATIONS AND C05IMENTS (VII.). LIFE AND LOVE. Quotations. " For life with all it yields of joy or woe, And hope and fear, Is just our chance o' th' prize of learning love." * " On est souvent trompd en amour, souvent blesse et ivent malheureux ? mais on aime, et quand on est sur horde de sa tomhe on se retoumer pour regarder en ifere, et on se dit : J'ai souffert souvent, je me sens impe quelquefois, mais j'ai aime." f " Du Heilige, nife dein kind zuriick, Ich habe genossen das irdische gliick Ich habe gelebt und geliebet." % " 'Tis better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at aU." § Browning. t A. de Mussel. J Schiller. § Tennyson. LIFE AND LOVE. 207 Comment. Thus, poets, do ye all agree. In sweet consentient unity, As though 'twere given from above, That Love is Life, and Life is Love. Pure language ,of the feelings, who Would dare to deem your thought untrue ? And yet perchance 'twere hard to prove Love is but Life, and Life is Love. A prize is dear though nobly bought. When in its winning death is wrought ; The world were gained at too great cost. If by its purchase Life were lost. Life's fairest prize is Love to learn, If Love give Life its joys to earn. And yet were neither " treasure trove," If Love kill Life, or Life kill Love. 'Tis hard to mete what yet remains To mem'ry of Love's golden gains, Harder to mete with it the throe, Its present sense of loss and woe. For Love and Life are oft so blent, We cannot mark each weird content ; How large in bulk and how intense Are veiled in nescience dark and dense. 2o8 LIFE AND LOVE. To answer full the poet's lay : — - That Love its loss doth far outweigh ; We first should know, in strict account, Of Love and loss the full amount. A loveless life were but a waste, By arid barrenness defaced ; But wasted is man's life scarce less, Death blasted to a wilderness. And so the Life once graced with Love, Though other lives we rank above. Yet less than other lives may be. If crushed by cruel destiny. Go, whisper the poor suicide. About to bury 'neath the tide The smart of love betrayed and lost, " Worse were her fate by Love uncrossed." Or tell the broken-hearted mate. Less dire were the woeful fate. That yields his sole life's joy to death, Than if it ne'er had taken breath. Better, maybe, to some chance one, Love won and lost, than Love unwon ; But only when the Love survives The loss death wrings from human lives. For tend'rest natures Love fills Life, Fulness of joy, with splendour rife; And Love being taken Life is left, A casket of its gem bereft. LIFE AND LOVE. 209 And if the casket, memory stored With trace of its once precious hoard, The fragrance of a balm unseen, Whisp'ring, " Here sweetness once hath been," Yet such dim memories but bring Thoughts which the heart with anguish wring, The gem despoiled, the casket's worth Is but to tell its value's dearth. The summer evening's after glow — Long glim'ring, though the sun bestow No more its orb to human sight — But leaves men wrapp'd in shades of night. So shivering men, their sun gone down, Moan, when they pass the night alone, " With dark and cold we'd not been wroth. Had not the sun screen'd from us both." No after-consciousness of gain Can quit Love's loss, or soothe its pain, When all is staked and all is lost. Too wrung are men to count the cost. ( 210 ) THE WINGS OF HOPE. In life's blithe spring, when Hope was young, The child was wanton and laughed and sung ; His wings untried were his boyish pride. As he fondly eyed where they gracefully sprung. He oped and refolded them early and late, In their beauty and gloss his delight was great ; His pinions were long, close feathered and strong. They well might belong to an eagle's mate. " Oho ! " quoth Hope, " these pinions of mine To easy ascent are a promptful sign ; My mission is found, I must spurn the ground, And far upward bound to yon stars that shine. So after due trial he purposed to fly. He shook his wings, spread them, and mounted high ; So easy their flight, or his form was light. He was soon out of sight in the clear blue sky. But no less speedy was Hope's descent, He could not soar to the height he meant ; So stagnant the air, so chill and rare, Not all he could dare could achieve his intent. 7 HE WINGS OF HOPE. Foiled and dismayed, Hope fell to the ground, Though his airy frame no great injury found ; Nor his earthward rush, though it made him blush. Could his buoyancy crush or prevent his rebound. Again he arose on his soaring wings. Like the lark in the dawn that mounts and sings ; To scale he was fain, far-off summits and gain, And thereafter retain, aerial things. But times without count, how oft none could tell. From his loftiest mountings abruptly he fell ; But though they grew sore, his wings patient bore Their falls, and e'er more new ascents did impel. With lengthening life Hope older grew, His wings remained buoyant but ceased to be new ; Yet his instincts retained their old ardour, and gained. O'er his strength that remained goodly triumphs not few. But lesser and less were th' ascents he essayed. His wings became quilly and draggled and frayed ; Now also his flight was no longer light, But of such drawbacks spite, new efforts he made. At last by mournful experience taught. For loftiest aims more rarely he sought, His ascents became all more airily small, And whence a chance fall would signify naught. How piteous in age to behold Hope's wings. Hang drearily down with the droop age brings. Their plumage bare-worn, quills bruised and torn They seemed the forlornest of feathered things. THE WINGS OF HOPE. Then Hope that embodied in life's young day Glad buoyancy, now was dull, withered, and grey, His mien dejected, his life-aims wrecked, No one now could detect his young ardour gay. Last of all, in late age Hope sadly furled Worn wings that to earth had so oft been hurled ; But even now Hope, seeking loftier scope, New wings yearns to ope in a future world. ( 213 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (VIII.); THE ETERNITY OF TRUTH. Quotation.^ " Erit igitur Veritas, etiamsi mundus intereat." ' Comment. The world is passing, cease your quest For Truth ; what boots the vain unrest Which seeks but faUs to find its best ? The world is dying : to what end Beyond its bounds persistent tend. Or with its realness fiction blend ? The world is perishing : what use Its mundane pleasure to refiise. Or on vain ideal joys to muse ? * • « « * So rings the loud despairing cry, Filling the world with clamour high. Who will may echo : but not I. • Augustine, " Solil.," II. ch. ii. 214 THE ETERNITY OF TRUTH. For if it be so, then, what next ? Must we admit our souls are vex'd By sequent reasoning from such text ? Whatever fate our world befall, Destroyed by forces that appal With their consuming sweep of all. Whatever happen to earth-time, Man's record long of greed and crime, Scantly relieved by deeds sublime. Though in oblivion's Lethean stream, Earth-products men most lasting deem Be gulfed — forgotten as a dream. Though all the suns and stars through space, Held in infinity's embrace Perish, nor leave the smallest trace, Yet Truth its changeless being retains. And as ideal queen still reigns, Though of earth realness nought remains. The Truth of word and deed to-day, That in man's life and thought bears sway, Can never truly pass away. Without abatement, change, or flaw, Defiant of death's ravenous maw. Truth to Eternity gives law. Nay more, essential Being, its soul Makes vital all creation's whole, And e'en to God gives birth and goal. ( 2IS ) THE SONG OF THE EURIPIDEAN DEITIES. ^6povfft 5' avTa 6eol ndKtv re Kal TrpSirco Tapayfibv ivTideyres, ats ayvafflif ^e^fofiev duTois. . . . Euripides, " Hecuba," 944. " HiTHEE and thither, despising men's grumble, Upward and down, a promiscuous jumble. Human fates unconcerned we tumble ; Human sorrows, and hopes, and joys. Are our chosen Olympian toys. These we commingle in direst confusion. Weaving our spell of men's illusion, Mocking their sense of security. Wrecking their hopes of futurity. Their questing lips we lock with a muzzle. Their destinies all we transmute to a puzzle. No other conclusion we leave them free, Than that Ufe is a hopeless uncertainty. » m * * * " And this is why we confuse in a tangle Men's lots, and their hopes we love to mangle ; That driven by knowledge destitution, By failure of finding a sure solution 2i6 THE SONG OF THE EVRIPIDEAN DEITIES. For life's enigma — poor mortals may crowd Our shrines, and offer us praises loud. Our aid capricious may ever invoke, And with victims cause our altars to smoke." ***** Agnostics, ye who ayvoicna take. And your sole Ufe-principle choose to make, At least its logical outcome learn. Nor on that account deity-worship spurn, 'Tis Certainty, not its measureless dearth That rightly dares banish the gods from earth. ( 217 ) ON MATTHEW ARNOLD'S DEFINITION OF- DEITY — •' SOMETHING THA T MAKES FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS!' As a child launches on the running stream His paper skiff, nor knows its destined goal, Bat chiefly the direction that it takes, Dim-trusting it may crest the ocean-wave ; Or blows upon the breeze the filmy orb. Prismatic hued, that issues from his pipe. Unwitting where it flies or how it falls, But hoping it will sail " above the house," So on the stream of tendency whose course Still makes for Righteousness, men cast Their sighs and prayers and eager efforts meet. And is it not enough that men should know The aim and tendency of the Divine ? That they should share the power and will to join Their hopes and efforts to the stream of Right, Unknown the ocean where its course doth cease ? 2i8 MATTHEW ARNOLD'S DEFINITION OF DEITY. But what if, one may interpose, the stream Find not its fitting ocean-bourne of Right ; But, its course losing, 'mid time's desert sands Dispersed, there come to an untimely end ? Would then man's skiff, laden with dearest hopes. Upon a stream that lacks its outflow due, Be wisely launched ? To which I answer thus : " The child knows only how the stream doth tend, Nor know men more than the mere course of Right — The main and ampler current as it moves. Marked from all backward eddies' transient flow — Nor more is needed. Howe'er its course may end, Cannot affect its present Right-ward drift. Nor yet the noble truth annul :^What Right Is now, must Right remain for evermore." ( 219 ) IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? A QUERY SOLVED BY QUESTIONS. Is life worth living, That gift of Heaven's giving, Is it worth man's receiving ? Is life's conflict worth daring. Or the vigour worth sharing. That comes from its bearing? Is joy worth possessing, Maugre all its confessing, 'Tis not always a blessing ? Is love worth acquiring, Man's selfishness firing, With noblest aspiring ? Is Nature worth wooing, Are her beauties worth viewing, Or her secrets pursuing ? IS LIFE WORTH LIVING t Is spring worth enjoying, Or summer deploying, Her sweets without cloying ? Is art worth the culture, Music, painting, and sculpture, Do all merit sepulture ? Are good books worth reading, Whence both " light and leading," Are ever proceeding ? Is thought worth the spending, On themes without ending, Past man's apprehending ? Is Truth worth the questing. Without pausing or resting, Man's eflforts all besting ? Is good work worth doing. Are ill deeds worth rueing. Is peace worth ensuing ? And Are questions worth asking, Man's wit vainly tasking. And true issues masking ? ( 221 ) ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG AND ONLY CHILD. Rest, happy child, In the soft embrace of thy Saviour mild. The world thou leav'st is stormy, harsh, and wild. By sin beguiled. Thy time was brief, Just long enough love's ties and sweet belief To bind up with our hearts, as in one sheaf. Rent — to our grief. Little we think, Who worship weeping round thy small grave's brink, How much the more life's full cup thou wouldst shrink Mayhap to drink. Enough for taste Of love and play and sickness — and for waste. Since tired of all — knowing thyself misplaced, Hence thou didst haste. Our hearts are sore, Since death hath riven from their inmost core A vital part. How full love's life before Now know we more. 222 ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG AND ONLY CHILD. As a ray lent From fairer worlds, with kindliest intent, To add fresh lustre to our lives' content, Being with them blent. Now are they dim, As when bright Hesper sinks beneath the rim Of the horizon, and men's eyes o'erbrim With darkness grim. Life is more scant Of human treasure, and more rich in want. Now that thy presence gilds no more the haunt Which did it vaunt. Life's varied ill. The greed and falsehood which our world doth fill. Reft of thy innocence and self-less will, Seem drearier still. More loud its roar Of clamorous unwisdom than before, Unhush'd by thy voice-music that o'erbore It — heard no more. E'en Nature's voice. Conveying calm, or bidding us rejoice, Seems now, that silenced are thy accents choice, Discordant noise. We cannot tell In what sweet home of innocence thou dost dwell ; That heaven were rendered heavenlier by thy spell We know full well. ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG AND ONLY CHILD. 223 And so we mourn, Our earthly life of heavenly grace so shorn, While deeper grieve we that from that far bourne Is no return. And yet more bright Seems death's dark realm to our bhnd wond'ring sight Now thou hast, by thy presence, changed to light Its fatal night. Dear child, farewell. What thou hast been to us we cannot tell ; We know but this — our happiness in thy funeral bell Hath its own knell. ( 224 ) QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTS (IX.). HUMAN PLANS v. HUMAN ISSUES. Quotation. 'E^6i) Se oSvvrj ia-rl rwv iv dvOpunrouri avrrj, TroXXa