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• lirik lagu dame sybil thorndike - in memoriam

lirik lagu dame sybil thorndike - in memoriam

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strong son of god, immortal love
whom we, that have not seen thy face
by faith, and faith alone, embrace
believing where we cannot prove;

thine are these orbs of light and shade;
thou madest life in man and brute;
thou madest death; and lo, thy foot
is on the skull which thou hast made

thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
thou madest man, he knows not why;
he thinks he was not made to die;
and thou hast made him: thou art just

thou seemest human and divine
the highest, holiest manhood, thou:
our wills are ours, we know not how;
our wills arе ours, to make them thine

our littlе systems have their day;
they have their day and cease to be:
they are but broken lights of thee
and thou, o lord, art more than they

we have but faith: we cannot know;
for knowledge is of things we see;
and yet we trust it comes from thee
a beam in darkness: let it grow
let knowledge grow from more to more
but more of reverence in us dwell;
that mind and soul, according well
may make one music as before

but vaster. we are fools and slight;
we mock thee when we do not fear:
but help thy foolish ones to bear;
help thy vain worlds to bear thy light

forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
what seem’d my worth since i began;
for merit lives from man to man
and not from man, o lord, to thee

forgive my grief for one removed
thy creature, whom i found so fair
i trust he lives in thee, and there
i find him worthier to be loved

forgive these wild and wandering cries
confusions of a wasted youth;
forgive them where they fail in truth
and in thy wisdom make me wise

i held it truth, with him who sings
to one clear harp in divers tones
that men may rise on stepping~stones
of their dead selves to higher things
but who shall so forecast the years
and find in loss a gain to match?
or reach a hand thro’ time to catch
the far~off interest of tears?

let love clasp grief lest both be drown’d
let darkness keep her raven gloss;
ah! sweeter to be drunk with loss
to dance with death, to beat the ground;

than that the victor hours should scorn
the long result of love, and boast:
‘behold the man that loved and lost
but all he was is overworn.’

old yew, which graspest at the stones
that name the under~lying dead
thy fibres net the dreamless head;
thy roots are wrapt about the bones

the seasons bring the flower again
and bring the firstling to the flock;
and in the dusk of thee, the clock
beats out the little lives of men

o! not for thee the glow, the bloom
who changest not in any gale!
nor branding summer suns avail
to touch thy thousand years of gloom
and gazing on the sullen tree
sick for thy stubborn hardihood
i seem to fail from out my blood
and grow incorporate into thee

o sorrow, cruel fellowship!
o priestess in the vaults of death!
o sweet and bitter in a breath
what whispers from thy lying lip?

‘the stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run;
a web is wov’n across the sky;
from out waste places comes a cry
and murmurs from the dying sun:

‘and all the phantom, nature, stands~~
with all her music in her tone
a hollow echo of my own,~~
a hollow form with empty hands.’

and shall i take a thing so blind
embrace her as my natural good;
or crush her, like a vice of blood
upon the threshold of the mind?

to sleep i give my powers away;
my will is bondsman to the dark;
i sit within a helmless bark
and with my heart i muse and say:

‘o heart, how fares it with thee now
that thou should’st fail from thy desire
who scarcely darest to inquire
what is it makes me beat so low?’

something it is which thou hast lost
some pleasure from thine early years
break, thou deep vase of chilling tears
that grief hath shaken into frost!

such clouds of nameless trouble cross
all night below the darken’d eyes;
with morning wakes the will, and cries
‘thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’

i sometimes hold it half a sin
to put in words the grief i feel;
for words, like nature, half reveal
and half conceal the soul within

but, for the unquiet heart and brain
a use in measur’d language lies;
the sad mechanic exercise
like dull narcotics, numbing pain

in words, like weeds, i’ll wrap me o’er
like co~rs~st clothes against the cold;
but that large grief which these enfold
is given in outline and no more

one writes, that ‘other friends remain,’
that ‘loss is common to the race’~~
and common is the commonplace
and vacant chaff well meant for grain

that loss is common would not make
my own less bitter, rather more:
too common! never morning wore
to evening, but some heart did break

o father, wheresoe’er thou be
that pledgest now thy gallant son;
a shot, ere half thy draught be done
hath still’d the life that beat from thee

o mother, praying god will save
thy sailor,~~while thy head is bow’d
his heavy~shotted hammock~shroud
drops in his vast and wandering grave

ye know no more than i who wrought
at that last hour to please him well;
who mused on all i had to tell
and something written, something thought;

expecting still his advent home;
and ever met him on his way
with wishes, thinking, here to~day
or here to~morrow will he come

o! somewhere, meek unconscious dove
that sittest ranging golden hair;
and glad to find thyself so fair
poor child, that waitest for thy love!

for now her father’s chimney glows
in expectation of a guest;
and thinking ‘this will please him best,’
she takes a riband or a rose;

for he will see them on to~night;
and with the thought her colour burns;
and, having left the glass, she turns
once more to set a ringlet right;

and, even when she turn’d, the curse
had fallen, and her future lord
was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford
or k!ll’d in falling from his horse

o, what to her shall be the end?
and what to me remains of good?
to her, perpetual maidenhood
and unto me, no second friend

dark house, by which once more i stand
here in the long unlovely street
doors, where my heart was used to beat
so quickly, waiting for a hand

a hand that can be clasp’d no more~~
behold me, for i cannot sleep
and like a guilty thing i creep
at earliest morning to the door

he is not here; but far away
the noise of life begins again
and ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
on the bald street breaks the blank day

a happy lover who has come
to look on her that loves him well
who lights and rings the gateway bell
and learns her gone and far from home

he saddens, all the magic light
dies off at once from bower and hall
and all the place is dark, and all
the chambers emptied of delight;

so find i every pleasant spot
in which we two were won’t to meet
the field, the chamber and the street
for all is dark where thou art not

yet as that other, wandering there
in those deserted walks, may find
a flower beat with rain and wind
which once she foster’d up with care;

so seems it in my deep regret
o my forsaken heart, with thee
and this poor flower of poesy
which little cared for fades not yet

but since it pleased a vanish’d eye
i go to plant it on his tomb
that if it can it there may bloom
or dying there at least may die

fair ship, that from the italian shore
sailest the placid ocean~plains
with my lost arthur’s loved remains
spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er

so draw him home to those that mourn
in vain; a favourable speed
ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead
thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn

all night no ruder air perplex
thy sliding keel, till phosphor, bright
as our pure love, thro’ early light
shall glimmer on the dewy decks

sphere all your lights around, above;
sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now
my friend, the brother of my love

my arthur! whom i shall not see
till all my widow’d race be run;
dear as the mother to the son
more than my brothers are to me

i hear the noise about thy keel;
i hear the bell struck in the night;
i see the cabin~window bright;
i see the sailor at the wheel

thou bringest the sailor to his wife
and travell’d men from foreign lands;
and letters unto trembling hands;
and, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life

so bring him: we have idle dreams:
this look of quiet flatters thus
our home~bred fancies: o to us
the fools of habit, sweeter seems

to rest beneath the clover sod
that takes the sunshine and the rains
or where the kneeling hamlet drains
the chalice of the grapes of god;

than if with thee the roaring wells
should gulf him fathom deep in brine;
and hands so often clasp’d in mine
should toss with tangle and with sh~lls

calm is the morn without a sound
calm as to suit a calmer grief
and only thro’ the faded leaf
the chesnut pattering to the ground:

calm and deep peace on this high wold
and on these dews that drench the furze
and all the silvery gossamers
that twinkle into green and gold:

calm and still light on yon great plain
that sweeps with all its autumn bowers
and crowded farms and lessening towers
to mingle with the bounding main:

calm and deep peace in this wide air
these leaves that redden to the fall;
and in my heart, if calm at all
if any calm, a calm despair:

calm on the seas, and silver sleep
and waves that sway themselves in rest
and dead calm in that n0ble breast
which heaves but with the heaving deep

lo! as a dove when up she springs
to hear thro’ heaven a tale of woe
some dolorous message knit below
the wild pulsation of her wings;

like her i go: i cannot stay;
i leave this mortal ark behind
a weight of nerves without a mind
and leave the cliffs, and haste away

o’er ocean mirrors rounded large
and reach the glow of southern skies
and see the sails at distance rise
and linger weeping on the marge

and saying; ‘comes he thus, my friend?
is this the end of all my care?’
and circle moaning in the air:
‘is this the end? is this the end?’

and forward dart again, and play
about the prow, and back return
to where the body sits, and learn
that i have been an hour away

tears of the widower, when he sees
a late~lost form that sleep reveals
and moves his doubtful arms, and feels
her place is empty, fall like these;

which weep a loss for ever new
a void where heart on heart reposed;
and, where warm hands have prest and closed
silence, till i be silent too

which weep the comrade of my choice
an awful thought, a life removed
the human~hearted man i loved
a spirit, not a breathing voice

come time, and teach me many years
i do not suffer in a dream;
for now so strange do these things seem
mine eyes have leisure for their tears;

my fancies time to rise on wing
and glance about the approaching sails
as tho’ they brought but merchants’ bales
and not the burthen that they bring

if one should bring me this report
that thou hadst touch’d the land to~day
and i went down unto the quay
and found thee lying in the port

and standing, m~ffled round with woe
should see thy passengers in rank
come stepping lightly down the plank
and beckoning unto those they know

and if along with these should come
the man i held as half~divine;
should strike a sudden hand in mine
and ask a thousand things of home;

and i should tell him all my pain
and how my life had droop’d of late
and he should sorrow o’er my state
and marvel what possess’d my brain;

and i perceived no touch of change
no hint of death in all his frame
but found him all in all the same
i should not feel it to be strange

to night the winds began to rise
and roar from yonder dropping day:
the last red leaf is whirl’d away
the rooks are blown about the skies;

the forest crack’d, the waters curl’d
the cattle huddled on the lea;
and wildly dash’d on tower and tree
the sunbeam strikes along the world:

and but for fancies, which aver
that all thy motions gently pass
athwart a plane of molten glass
i scarce could brook the strain and stir

that makes the barren branches loud;
and but for fear it is not so
the wild unrest that lives in woe
would dote and pore on yonder cloud

that rises upward always higher
and onward drags a labouring breast
and topples round the dreary west
a looming bastion fringed with fire

what words are these have fall’n from me?
can calm despair and wild unrest
be tenants of a single breast
or sorrow such a changeling be?

or doth she only seem to take
the touch of change in calm or storm;
but knows no more of transient form
in her deep self, than some dead lake

that holds the shadow of a lark
hung in the shadow of a heaven?
or has the shock, so harshly given
confus’d me like the unhappy bark

that strikes by night a craggy shelf
and staggers blindly ere she sink?
and stunn’d me from my power to think
and all my knowledge of myself;

and made me that delirious man
whose fancy fuses old and new
and flashes into false and true
and mingles all without a plan?

thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer
was as the whisper of an air
to breathe thee over lonely seas

for i in spirit saw thee move
thro’ circles of the bounding sky;
week after week: the days go by:
come quick, thou bringest all i love

henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam
my blessing, like a line of light
is on the waters day and night
and like a beacon guards thee home

so may whatever tempest mars
mid~ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
and balmy drops in summer dark
slide from the bosom of the stars

so kind an office hath been done
such precious relics brought by thee;
the dust of him i shall not see
till all my widow’d race be run

’tis well, ’tis something, we may stand
where he in english earth is laid
and from his ashes may be made
the violet of his native land

’tis little; but it looks in truth
as if the quiet bones were blest
among familiar names to rest
and in the places of his youth

come then, pure hands, and bear the head
that sleeps or wears the mask of sleep
and come, whatever loves to weep
and hear the ritual of the dead

ah! yet, ev’n yet, if this might be
i, falling on his faithful heart
would breathing thro’ his lips impart
the life that almost dies in me:

that dies not, but endures with pain
and slowly forms the firmer mind
treasuring the look it cannot find
the words that are not heard again

the danube to the severn gave
the darken’d heart that beat no more;
they laid him by the pleasant shore
and in the hearing of the wave

there twice a day the severn fills
the salt sea~water passes by
and hushes half the babbling wye
and makes a silence in the hills

the wye is hush’d nor moved along;
and hush’d my deepest grief of all
when fill’d with tears that cannot fall
i brim with sorrow drowning song

the tide flows down, the wave again
is vocal in its wooded walls:
my deeper anguish also falls
and i can speak a little then

the lesser griefs that may be said
that breathe a thousand tender vows
are but as servants in a house
where lies the master newly dead;

who speak their feeling as it is
and weep the fulness from the mind:
‘it will be hard’ they say ‘to find
another service such as this.’

my lighter moods are like to these
that out of words a comfort win;
but there are other griefs within
and tears that at their fountain freeze;

for by the hearth the children sit
cold in that atmosphere of death
and scarce endure to draw the breath
or like to noiseless phantoms flit:

but open converse is there none
so much the vital spirits sink
to see the vacant chair, and think
‘how good! how kind! and he is gone.’

i sing to him that rests below
and, since the grasses round me wave
i take the grasses of the grave
and make them pipes whereon to blow

the traveller hears me now and then
and sometimes harshly will he speak;
‘this fellow would make weakness weak
and melt the waxen hearts of men.’

another answers, ‘let him be
he loves to make parade of pain
that with his piping he may gain
the praise that comes to constancy.’

a third is wroth, ‘is this an hour
for private sorrow’s barren song
when more and more the people throng
the chairs and thrones of civil power?

a time to sicken and to swoon
when science reaches forth her arms
to feel from world to world, and charms
her secret from the latest moon?’

behold, ye speak an idle thing:
ye never knew the sacred dust:
i do but sing because i must
and pipe but as the linnets sing:

and unto one her note is gay
for now her little ones have ranged;
and unto one her note is changed
because her brood is stol’n away

the path by which we twain did go
which led by tracts that pleased us well
thro’ four sweet years arose and fell
from flower to flower, from snow to snow:

and we with singing cheer’d the way
and crown’d with all the season lent
from april on to april went
and glad at heart from may to may:

but where the path we walk’d began
to slant the fifth autumnal slope
as we descended following hope
there sat the shadow fear’d of man;

who broke our fair companionship
and spread his mantle dark and cold;
and wrapped thee formless in the fold
and dull’d the murmur on thy lip;

and bore thee where i could not see
nor follow, tho’ i walk in haste;
and think that, somewhere in the waste
the shadow sits and waits for me

now, sometimes in my sorrow shut
or breaking into song by fits;
alone, alone, to where he sits
the shadow cloak’d from head to foot

who keeps the keys of all the creeds
i wander, often falling lame
and looking back to whence i came
or on to where the pathway leads;

and crying, how changed from where it ran
thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb;
but all the lavish hills would hum
the murmur of a happy pan:

when each by turns was guide to each
and fancy light from fancy caught
and thought leapt out to wed with thought
ere thought could wed itself with speech:

and all we met was fair and good
and all was good that time could bring
and all the secret of the spring
moved in the chambers of the blood:

and many an old philosophy
on argive heights divinely sang
and round us all the thicket rang
to many a flute of arcady

and was the day of my delight
as pure and perfect as i say?
the very source and fount of day
is dash’d with wandering isles of night

if all was good and fair we met
this earth had been the paradise
it never look’d to human eyes
since adam left his garden yet

and is it that the haze of grief
hath stretch’d my former joy so great?
the lowness of the present state
that sets the past in this relief?

or that the past will always win
a glory from its being far;
and orb into the perfect star
we saw not, when we moved therein?

i know that this was life,~~the track
whereon with equal feet we fared;
and then, as now, the day prepared
the daily burden for the back

but this it was that made me move
as light as carrier~birds in air;
i loved the weight i had to bear
because it needed help of love:

nor could i weary, heart or limb
when mighty love would cleave in twain
the lading of a single pain
and part it, giving half to him

still onward winds the dreary way;
i with it; for i long to prove
no lapse of moons can canker love
whatever fickle tongues may say

and if that eye which watches guilt
and goodness, and hath power to see
within the green the moulder’d tree
and towers fall’n as soon as built~~

oh, if indeed that eye foresee
or see (in him is no before)
in more of life true life no more
and love the indifference to be

so might i find, ere yet the morn
breaks hither over indian seas
that shadow waiting with the keys
to cloak me from my proper scorn

i envy not in any moods
the captive void of n0ble rage
the linnet born within the cage
that never knew the summer woods:

i envy not the beast that takes
his license in the field of time
unfetter’d by the sense of crime
to whom a conscience never wakes;

nor, what may count itself as blest
the heart that never plighted troth
but stagnates in the weeds of sloth
nor any want~begotten rest

i hold it true, whate’er befall;
i feel it, when i sorrow most;
’tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all

the time draws near the birth of christ:
the moon is hid; the night is still;
the christmas bells from hill to hill
answer each other in the mist

four voices of four hamlets round
from far and near, on mead and moor
swell out and fail, as if a door
were shut between me and the sound:

each voice four changes on the wind
that now dilate, and now decrease
peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace
peace and goodwill, to all mankind

this year i slept and woke with pain
i almost wish’d no more to wake
and that my hold on life would break
before i heard those bells again:

but they my troubled spirit rule
for they controll’d me when a boy;
they bring me sorrow touch’d with joy
the merry merry bells of yule

with such compelling cause to grieve
as daily vexes household peace
and chains regret to his decease
how dare we keep our christmas~eve;

which brings no more a welcome guest
to enrich the threshold of the night
with shower’d largess of delight
in dance and song and game and jest

yet go, and while the holly boughs
entwine the cold baptismal font
make one wreath more for use and won’t
that guard the portals of the house;

old sisters of a day gone by
gray nurses, loving nothing new;
why should they miss their yearly due
before their time? they too will die

with trembling fingers did we weave
the holly round the christmas hearth;
a rainy cloud possess’d the earth
and sadly fell our christmas~eve

at our old pastimes in the hall
we gambol’d, making vain pretence
of gladness, with an awful sense
of one mute shadow watching all

we paused: the winds were in the beech:
we heard them sweep the winter land;
and in a circle hand~in~hand
sat silent, looking each at each

then echo~like our voices rang;
we sung, tho’ every eye was dim
a merry song we sang with him
last year: impetuously we sang:

we ceased: a gentler feeling crept
upon us: surely rest is meet:
‘they rest,’ we said, ‘their sleep is sweet,’
and silence follow’d, and we wept

our voices took a higher range;
once more we sang: ‘they do not die
nor lose their mortal sympathy
nor change to us, although they change;

rapt from the fickle and the frail
with gather’d power, yet the same
pierces the keen seraphic flame
from orb to orb, from veil to veil

rise, happy morn, rise holy morn
draw forth the cheerful day from night:
o father! touch the east, and light
the light that shone when hope was born.’

when lazarus left his charnel~cave
and home to mary’s house return’d
was this demanded~~if he yearn’d
to hear her weeping by his grave?

‘where wert thou, brother, those four days?’
there lives no record of reply
which telling what it is to die
had surely added praise to praise

from every house the neighbours met
the streets were fill’d with joyful sound
a solemn gladness even crown’d
the purple brows of olivet

behold a man raised up by christ!
the rest remaineth unreveal’d;
he told it not; or something seal’d
the lips of that evangelist

her eyes are homes of silent prayer
nor other thought her mind admits
but, he was dead, and there he sits
and he that brought him back is there

then one deep love doth supersede
all other, when her ardent gaze
roves from the living brother’s face
and rests upon the life indeed

all subtle thought, all curious fears
borne down by gladness so complete
she bows, she bathes the saviour’s feet
with costly spikenard and with tears

thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers
whose loves in higher love endure;
what souls possess themselves so pure
or is there blessedness like theirs?

o thou that after toil and storm
mayst seem to have reach’d a purer air
whose faith has centre everywhere
nor cares to fix itself to form

leave thou thy sister when she prays
her early heaven, her happy views;
nor thou with shadow’d hint confuse
a life that leads melodious days

her faith thro’ form is pure as thine
her hands are quicker unto good
oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
to which she links a truth divine!

see, thou that countest reason ripe
in holding by the law within
thou fail not in a world of sin
and ev’n for want of such a type

my own dim life should teach me this
that life shall live for evermore
else earth is darkness at the core
and dust and ashes all that is;

this round of green, this orb of flame
fantastic beauty; such as lurks
in some wild poet, when he works
without a conscience or an aim

what then were god to such as i?
’twere hardly worth my while to choose
of things all mortal, or to use
a little patience ere i die;

’twere best at once to sink to peace
like birds the charming serpent draws
to drop head~foremost in the jaws
of vacant darkness and to cease

yet if some voice that man could trust
should murmur from the narrow house:
the cheeks drop in; the body bows;
man dies: nor is there hope in dust:

might i not say, yet even here
but for one hour, o love, i strive
to keep so sweet a thing alive?
but i should turn mine ears and hear

the moanings of the homeless sea
the sound of streams that swift or slow
draw down æonian hills, and sow
the dust of continents to be;

and love would answer with a sigh
‘the sound of that forgetful shore
will change my sweetness more and more
half dead to know that i shall die.’

o me! what profits it to put
an idle case? if death were seen
at first as death, love had not been
or been in narrowest working shut

mere fellowship of sluggish moods
or in his co~rs~st satyr~shape
had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape
and bask’d and batten’d in the woods

tho’ truths in manhood darkly join
deep~seated in our mystic frame
we yield all blessing to the name
of him that made them current coin;

for wisdom dealt with mortal powers
where truth in closest words shall fail
when truth embodied in a tale
shall enter in at lowly doors

and so the word had breath, and wrought
with human hands the creed of creeds
in loveliness of perfect deeds
more strong than all poetic thought;

which he may read that binds the sheaf
or builds the house, or digs the grave
and those wild eyes that watch the wave
in roarings round the coral reef

urania speaks with darken’d brow:
‘thou pratest here where thou art least;
this faith has many a purer priest
and many an abler voice than thou:

go down beside thy native rill
on thy parnassus set thy feet
and hear thy laurel whisper sweet
about the ledges of the hill.’

and my melpomene replies
a touch of shame upon her cheek:
‘i am not worthy but to speak
of thy prevailing mysteries;

for i am but an earthly muse
and owning but a little art
to lull with song an aching heart
and render human love his dues;

but brooding on the dear one dead
and all he said of things divine
(and dear as sacramental wine
to dying lips is all he said)

i murmur’d, as i came along
of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d;
and loiter’d in the master’s field
and darken’d sanctities with song.’

with weary steps i loiter on
tho’ always under alter’d skies
the purple from the distance dies
my prospect and horizon gone

no joy the blowing season gives
the herald melodies of spring
but in the songs i love to sing
a doubtful gleam of solace lives

if any care for what is here
survive in spirits render’d free
then are these songs i sing of thee
not all ungrateful to thine ear

could we forget the widow’d hour
and look on spirits breathed away
as on a maiden in the day
when first she wears her orange~flower!

when crown’d with blessing she doth rise
to take her latest leave of home
and hopes and light regrets that come
make april of her tender eyes;

and doubtful joys the father move
and tears are on the mother’s face
as parting with a long embrace
she enters other realms of love;

her office there to rear, to teach
becoming as is meet and fit
a link among the days, to knit
the generations each with each;

and, doubtless, unto thee is given
a life that bears immortal fruit
in such great offices as suit
the full~grown energies of heaven

ay me, the difference i discern!
how often shall her old fireside
be cheer’d with tidings of the bride
how often she herself return

and tell them all they would have told
and bring her babe, and make her boast
till even those that miss’d her most
shall count new things as dear as old:

but thou and i have shaken hands
till growing winters lay me low;
my paths are in the fields i know
and thine in undiscover’d lands

thy spirit ere our fatal loss
did ever rise from high to higher;
as mounts the heavenward altar~fire
as flies the lighter thro’ the gross

but thou art turn’d to something strange
and i have lost the links that bound
thy changes; here upon the ground;
no more partaker of thy change

deep folly! yet that this could be~~
that i could wing my will with might
to leap the grades of life and light
and flash at once, my friend, to thee:

for though my nature rarely yields
to that vague fear implied in death;
nor shudders at the gulfs beneath
the howlings from forgotten fields;

yet oft when sundown skirts the moor
an inner trouble i behold
a spectral doubt which makes me cold
that i shall be thy mate no more

tho’ following with an upward mind
the wonders that have come to thee
thro’ all the secular to be
but evermore a life behind

i vex my heart with fancies dim:
he still outstript me in the race;
it was but unity of place
that made me dream i rank’d with him

and so may place retain us still
and he the much~beloved again
a lord of large experience, train
to riper growth the mind and will:

and what delights can equal those
that stir the spirit’s inner deeps
when one that loves but knows not, reaps
a truth from one that loves and knows?

if sleep and death be truly one
and every spirit’s folded bloom
thro’ all its intervital gloom
in some long trance should slumber on;

unconscious of the sliding hour
bare of the body, might it last
and silent traces of the past
be all the colour of the flower:

so then were nothing lost to man;
but that still garden of the souls
in many a figured leaf enrolls
the total world since life began:

and love would last as pure and whole
as when he loved me here in time
and at the spiritual prime
rewaken with the dawning soul

how fares it with the happy dead?
for here the man is more and more;
but he forgets the days before
god shut the doorways of his head

the days have vanish’d, tone and tint
and yet perhaps the h~~rding sense
gives out at times (he knows not whence)
a little flash, a mystic hint;

and in the long harmonious years
(if death so taste lethean springs)
may some dim touch of earthly things
surprise thee ranging with thy peers

if such a dreamy touch should fall
o turn thee round, resolve the doubt
my guardian angel will speak out
in that high place, and tell thee all

the baby new to earth and sky
what time his tender palm is prest
against the circle of the breast
has never thought that ‘this is i:’

but as he grows he gathers much
and learns the use of ‘i,’ and ‘me,’
and finds ‘i am not what i see
and other than the things i touch:’

so rounds he to a separate mind
from whence clear memory may begin
as thro’ the frame that binds him in
his isolation grows defined

this use may lie in blood and breath
which else were fruitless of their due
had man to learn himself anew
beyond the second birth of death

we ranging down this lower track
the path we came by, th~rn and flower
is shadow’d by the growing hour
lest life should fail in looking back

so be it: there no shade can last
in that deep dawn behind the tomb
but clear from marge to marge shall bloom
the eternal landscape of the past;

a lifelong tract of time reveal’d;
the fruitful hours of still increase;
days order’d in a wealthy peace
and those five years its richest field

o love! thy province were not large
a bounded field, nor stretching far
look also, love, a brooding star
a rosy warmth from marge to marge

that each, who seems a separate whole
should move his rounds, and fusing all
the skirts of self again, should fall
remerging in the general soul

is faith as vague as all unsweet:
eternal form shall still divide
the eternal soul from all beside;
and i shall know him when we meet:

and we shall sit at endless feast
enjoying each the other’s good;
what vaster dream can hit the mood
of love on earth? he seeks at least

upon the last and sharpest height
before the spirits fade away
some landing~place, to clasp and say
‘farewell! we lose ourselves in light.’

if these brief lays, of sorrow born
were taken to be such as closed
grave doubts and answers here proposed
then these were such as men might scorn:

her care is not to part and prove;
she takes, when harsher moods remit
what slender shade of doubt may flit
and makes it vassal unto love:

and hence, indeed, she sports with words;
but better serves a wholesome law
and holds it sin and shame to draw
the deepest measure from the chords:

nor dare she trust a larger lay
but rather loosens from the lip
short swallow~flights of song, that dip
their wings in tears, and skim away

from art, from nature, from the schools
let random influences glance
like light in many a shiver’d lance
that breaks about the dappled pools:

the lightest wave of thought shall lisp
the fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe
the slightest air of song shall breathe
to make the sullen surface crisp

and look thy look, and go thy way
but blame not thou the winds that make
the seeming~wanton ripple break
the tender~pencil’d shadow play

beneath all fancied hopes and fears
ay me! the sorrow deepens down
whose m~ffled motions blindly drown
the bases of my life in tears

be near me when my light is low
when the blood creeps, and the nerves pr~ck
and tingle; and the heart is sick
and all the wheels of being slow

be near me when the sensuous frame
is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust
and time, a maniac, scattering dust
and life, a fury, slinging flame

be near me when my faith is dry
and men the flies of latter spring
that lay their eggs, and sting and sing
and weave their petty cells and die

be near me when i fade away
to point the term of human strife
and on the low dark verge of life
the twilight of eternal day

do we indeed desire the dead
should still be near us at our side?
is there no baseness we would hide?
no inner vileness that we dread?

shall he for whose applause i strove
i had such reverence for his blame
see with clear eye some hidden shame
and i be lessen’d in his love?

i wrong the grave with fears untrue:
shall love be blamed for want of faith?
there must be wisdom with great death;
the dead shall look me thro’ and thro’

be near us when we climb or fall:
ye watch, like god, the rolling hours
with larger other eyes than ours
to make allowance for us all

i cannot love thee as i ought
for love reflects the thing beloved;
my words are only words, and moved
upon the topmost froth of thought

‘yet blame not thou thy plaintive song,’
the spirit of true love replied;
‘thou canst not move me from thy side
nor human frailty do me wrong

‘what keeps a spirit wholly true
to that ideal which he bears?
what record? not the sinless years
that breathed beneath the syrian blue;

‘so fret not, like an idle girl
that life is dash’d with flecks of sin
abide: thy wealth is gathered in
when time hath sunder’d sh~ll from pearl.’

how many a father have i seen
a sober man, among his boys
whose youth was full of foolish noise
who wears his manhood hale and green;

and dare we to this doctrine give
that had the wild oat not been sown
the soil, left barren, had not grown
the grain by which a man may live?

oh! if we held the doctrine sound
for life outliving heats of youth
yet who would preach it as a truth
to those that eddy round and round?

hold thou the good: define it well:
for fear divine philosophy
should push beyond her mark, and be
procuress to the lords of h~ll

oh yet we trust that somehow good
will be the final goal of ill
to pangs of nature, sins of will
defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

that nothing walks with aimless feet;
that not one life shall be destroy’d
or cast as rubbish to the void
when god hath made the pile complete;

that not a worm is cloven in vain;
that not a moth with vain desire
is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire
or but subserves another’s gain

behold! we know not anything;
i can but trust that good shall fall
at last~~far off~~at last, to all
and every winter change to spring

so runs my dream: but what am i?
an infant crying in the night:
an infant crying for the light:
and with no language but a cry

the wish, that of the living whole
no life may fail beyond the grave;
derives it not from what we have
the likest god within the soul?

are god and nature then at strife
that nature lends such evil dreams?
so careful of the type she seems
so careless of the single life;

that i, considering everywhere
her secret meaning in her deeds
and finding that of fifty seeds
she often brings but one to bear;

i falter where i firmly trod
and falling with my weight of cares
upon the great world’s altar~stairs
that slope thro’ darkness up to god;

i stretch lame hands of faith, and grope
and gather dust and chaff, and call
to what i feel is lord of all
and faintly trust the larger hope

‘so careful of the type?’ but no
from scarped cliff and quarried stone
she cries ‘a thousand types are gone:
i care for nothing, all shall go

thou makest thine appeal to me:
i bring to life, i bring to death:
the spirit does but mean the breath:
i know no more.’ and he, shall he

man, her last work, who seem’d so fair
such splendid purpose in his eyes
who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies
who built him fanes of fruitless prayer

who trusted god was love indeed
and love creation’s final law~~
tho’ nature, red in tooth and claw
with ravine, shriek’d against his creed~~

who loved, who suffer’d countless ills
who battled for the true, the just
be blown about the desert dust
or seal’d within the iron hills?

no more? a monster then, a dream
a discord. dragons of the prime
that tare each other in their slime
were mellow music match’d with him

o life as futile, then, as frail!
o for thy voice to soothe and bless!
what hope of answer, or redress?
behind the veil, behind the veil

peace, come away: the song of woe
is after all an earthly song:
peace, come away; we do him wrong
to sing so wildly; let us go

come, let us go, your cheeks are pale
but half my life i leave behind;
methinks my friend is richly shrined
but i shall pass; my work will fail

yet in these ears till hearing dies
one set slow bell will seem to toll
the passing of the sweetest soul
that ever looked with human eyes

i hear it now, and o’er and o’er
eternal greetings to the dead;
and ‘ave, ave, ave,’ said
‘adieu, adieu’ for evermore!

in those sad words i took farewell:
like echoes in sepulchral halls
as drop by drop the water falls
in vaults and catacombs, they fell;

and, falling, idly broke the peace
of hearts that beat from day to day
half~conscious of their dying clay
and those cold crypts where they shall cease

the high muse answer’d: ‘wherefore grieve
thy brethren with a fruitless tear?
abide a little longer here
and thou shalt take a n0bler leave.’

he past; a soul of n0bler tone:
my spirit loved and loves him yet
like some poor girl whose heart is set
on one whose rank exceeds her own

he mixing with his proper sphere
she finds the baseness of her lot;
half jealous of she knows not what
and envying all that meet him there

the little village looks forlorn;
she sighs amid her narrow days
moving about the household ways
in that dark house where she was born

the foolish neighbours come and go
and tease her till the day draws by;
at night she weeps, ‘how vain am i!
how should he love a thing so low?’

if, in thy second state sublime
thy ransom’d reason change replies
with all the circle of the wise
the perfect flower of human time;

and if thou cast thine eyes below
how dimly character’d and slight
how dwarf’d a growth of cold and night
how blanch’d with darkness must i grow!

yet turn thee to the doubtful shore
where thy first form was made a man:
i loved thee, spirit, and love, nor can
the soul of shakspeare love thee more

tho’ if an eye that’s downward cast
could make thee somewhat blench or fail
so be my love an idle tale
and fading legend of the past;

and thou, as one that once declined
when he was little more than boy
on some unworthy heart with joy
but lives to wed an equal mind;

and breathes a novel world, the while
his other passion wholly dies
or in the light of deeper eyes
is matter for a flying smile

yet pity for a horse o’er~driven
and love in which my hound has part
can hang no weight upon my heart
in its assumptions up to heaven;

and i am so much more than these
as thou, perchance, art more than i
and yet i spare them sympathy
and i would set their pains at ease

so may’st thou watch me where i weep
as, unto vaster motions bound
the circuits of thine orbit round
a higher height, a deeper deep

dost thou look back on what hath been
as some divinely gifted man
whose life in low estate began
and on a simple village green;

who breaks his birth’s invidious bar
and grasps the skirts of happy chance
and br~~sts the blows of circumstance
and grapples with his evil star;

who makes by force his merit known
and lives to clutch the golden keys
to mould a mighty state’s decrees
and shape the whisper of the throne;

and moving up from high to higher
becomes on fortune’s crowning slope
the pillar of a people’s hope
the centre of a world’s desire;

yet feels, as in a pensive dream
when all his active powers are still
a distant dearness in the hill
a secret sweetness in the stream

the limit of his narrower fate
while yet beside its vocal springs
he played at counsellors and kings
with one that was his earliest mate;

who ploughs with pain his native lea
and reaps the labour of his hands
or in the furrow musing stands;
‘does my old friend remember me?’

sweet soul! do with me as thou wilt;
i lull a fancy trouble~tost
with ‘love’s too precious to be lost
a little grain shall not be spilt.’

and in that solace can i sing
till out of painful phases wrought
there flutters up a happy thought
self~balanced on a lightsome wing:

since we deserved the name of friends
and thine effect so lives in me
a part of mine may live in thee
and move thee on to n0ble ends

you thought my heart too far diseased;
you wonder when my fancies play
to find me gay among the gay
like one with any trifle pleased

the shade by which my life was crost
which makes a desert in the mind
has made me kindly with my kind
and like to him whose sight is lost;

whose feet are guided thro’ the land
whose jest among his friends is free
who takes the children on his knee
and winds their curls about his hand:

he plays with threads, he beats his chair
for pastime, dreaming of the sky;
his inner day can never die
his night of loss is always there

when on my bed the moonlight falls
i know that in thy place of rest
by that broad water of the west
there comes a glory on the walls:

thy marble bright in dark appears
as slowly steals a silver flame
along the letters of thy name
and o’er the number of thy years

the mystic glory swims away;
from off my bed the moonlight dies;
and closing eaves of wearied eyes
i sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:

and then i know the mist is drawn
a lucid veil from coast to coast
and in the chancel like a ghost
thy tablet glimmers to the dawn

when in the down i sink my head
sleep, death’s twin~brother, times my breath;
sleep, death’s twin~brother, knows not death
nor can i dream of thee as dead:

i walk as ere i walk’d forlorn
when all our path was fresh with dew
and all the bugle breezes blew
reveillée to the breaking morn

but what is this? i turn about
i find a trouble in thine eye
which makes me sad i know not why
nor can my dream resolve the doubt:

but ere the lark hath left the lea
i wake, and i discern the truth;
it is the trouble of my youth
that foolish sleep transfers to thee

i dream’d there would be spring no more
that nature’s ancient power was lost:
the streets were black with smoke and frost
they chatter’d trifles at the door

i wander’d from the noisy town
i found a wood with th~rny boughs:
i took the th~rns to bind my brows
i wore them like a civic crown

i met with scoffs, i met with scorns
from youth and babe and h~~ry hairs:
they call’d me in the public squares
the fool that wears a crown of th~rns

they call’d me fool, they call’d me child:
i found an angel of the night:
the voice was low, the look was bright
he look’d upon my crown and smiled:

he reach’d the glory of a hand
that seem’d to touch it into leaf:
the voice was not the voice of grief;
the words were hard to understand

i cannot see the features right
when on the gloom i strive to paint
the face i know; the hues are faint
and mix with hollow masks of night:

cloud~towers by ghostly masons wrought
a gulf that ever shuts and gapes
a hand that points, and palled shapes
in shadowy thoroughfares of thought;

and crowds that stream from yawning doors
and shoals of pucker’d faces drive;
dark bulks that tumble half alive
and lazy lengths on boundless shores:

till all at once beyond the will
i hear a wizard music roll
and thro’ a lattice on the soul
looks thy fair face and makes it still

sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance
and madness, thou hast forged at last
a night~long present of the past
in which we went through summer france

hadst thou such credit with the soul?
so bring an opiate treble~strong
drug down the blindfold sense of wrong
that thus my pleasure might be whole;

while now we talk as once we talk’d
of men and minds, the dust of change
the days that grow to something strange
in walking as of old we walk’d

beside the river’s wooded reach
the fortress, and the mountain ridge
the cataract flashing from the bridge
the breaker breaking on the beach

risest thou thus, dim dawn, again
and howlest, issuing out of night
with blasts that blow the poplar white
and lash with storm the streaming pane?

day, when my crown’d estate begun
to pine in that reverse of doom
which sickened every living bloom
and blurr’d the splendour of the sun;

who usherest in the dolorous hour
with thy quick tears that make the rose
pull sideways, and the daisy close
her crimson fringes to the shower;

who might’st have heaved a windless flame
up the deep east, or, whispering, play’d
a chequer~work of beam and shade
from hill to hill, yet look’d the same

as wan, as chill, as wild as now;
day, mark’d as with some hideous crime
when the dark hand struck down thro’ time
and cancell’d nature’s best: but thou

lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows
thro’ clouds that drench the morning star
and whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar
and sow the sky with flying boughs

and up thy vault with roaring sound
climb thy thick noon, disastrous day;
touch thy dull goal of joyless gray
and hide thy shame beneath the ground

so many worlds, so much to do
so little done, such things to be
how know i what had need of thee
for thou wert strong as thou wert true?

the fame is quench’d that i foresaw
the head hath miss’d an earthly wreath:
i curse not nature; no, nor death
for nothing is that errs from law

we pass: the path that each man trod
is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
what fame is left for human deeds
in endless age? it rests with god

o hollow wraith of dying fame
fade wholly, while the soul exults
and self~infolds the large results
of force that would have forged a name

as sometimes in a dead man’s face
to those that watch it more and more
a likeness hardly seen before
comes out~~to some one of his race:

so, dearest, now thy brows are cold
i see thee what thou art, and know
thy likeness to the wise below
thy kindred with the great of old

but there is more than i can see
and what i see i leave unsaid
nor speak it, knowing death has made
his darkness beautiful with thee

i leave thy praises unexpress’d
in verse that brings myself relief
and by the measure of my grief
i leave thy greatness to be guess’d;

what practice howsoe’er expert
in fitting aptest words to things
or voice the richest~toned that sings
hath power to give thee as thou wert?

i care not in these fading days
to raise a cry that lasts not long
and round thee with the breeze of song
to stir a little dust of praise

thy leaf has perish’d in the green
and, while we breathe beneath the sun
the world which credits what is done
is cold to all that might have been

so here shall silence guard thy fame;
but somewhere, out of human view
whate’er thy hands are set to do
is wrought with tumult of acclaim

take wings of fancy, and ascend
and in a moment set thy face
where all the starry heavens of sp~ce
are sharpen’d to a needle’s end;

take wings of foresight: lighten thro’
the secular abyss to come
and lo! thy deepest lays are dumb
before the mouldering of a yew;

and if the matin songs, that woke
the darkness of our planet, last
thine own shall wither in the vast
ere half the lifetime of an oak

ere these have clothed their branchy bowers
with fifty mays, thy songs are vain;
and what are they when these remain
the ruin’d sh~lls of hollow towers?

what hope is here for modern rhyme
to him, who turns a musing eye
on songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
foreshorten’d in the tract of time?

these mortal lullabies of pain
may bind a book, may line a box
may serve to curl a maiden’s locks;
or when a thousand moons shall wane

a man upon a stall may find
and, passing, turn the page that tells
a grief~~then changed to something else
sung by a long forgotten mind

but what of that? my darken’d ways
shall ring with music all the same;
to breathe my loss is more than fame
to utter love more sweet than praise

again at christmas did we weave
the holly round the christmas hearth
the silent snow possess’d the earth
and calmly fell our christmas~eve;

the yule~clog sparkled keen with frost
no wing of wind the region swept
but over all things brooding slept
the quiet sense of something lost

as in the winters left behind
again our ancient games had place
the mimic pictures breathing grace
and dance and song and hoodman~blind

who show’d a token of distress?
no single tear, no type of pain:
o sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
o grief, can grief be changed to less?

o last regret, regret can die!
no~~mixt with all this mystic frame
her deep relations are the same
but with long use her tears are dry

‘more than my brothers are to me’~~
let this not vex thee, n0ble heart!
i know thee of what force thou art
to hold the costliest love in fee

but thou and i are one in kind
as moulded like in nature’s mint;
and hill and wood and field did print
the same sweet forms in either mind

for us the same cold streamlet curl’d
through all his eddying coves; the same
all winds that roam the twilight came
in whispers of the beauteous world

at one dear knee we proffer’d vows
one lesson from one book we learn’d
ere childhood’s flaxen ringlet turn’d
to black and brown on kindred brows

and so my wealth resembles thine
but he was rich where i was poor
and he supplied my want the more
as his unlikeness fitted mine

if any vague desire should rise
that holy death ere arthur died
had moved me kindly from his side
and dropt the dust on tearless eyes;

then fancy shapes, as fancy can
the grief my loss in him had wrought
a grief as deep as life or thought
but stay’d in peace with god and man

i make a picture in the brain;
i hear the sentence that he speaks;
he bears the burthen of the weeks
but turns his burthen into gain

his credit thus shall set me free;
and, influence~rich to soothe and save
unused example from the grave
reach out dead hands to comfort me

could i have said while he was here
‘my love shall now no further range
there cannot come a mellower change
for now is love mature in ear.’

love, then, had hope of richer store:
what end is here to my complaint?
this haunting whisper makes me faint
‘more years had made me love thee more.’

but death returns an answer sweet:
‘my sudden frost was sudden gain
and gave all ripeness to the grain
it might have drawn from after~heat.’

i wage not any feud with death
for changes wrought on form and face;
no lower life that earth’s embrace
may breed with him, can fright my faith

eternal process moving on
from state to state the spirit walks;
and these are but the shatter’d stalks
or ruined chrysalis of one

nor blame i death, because he bare
the use of virtue out of earth;
i know transplanted human worth
will bloom to profit, otherwhere

for this alone on death i wreak
the wrath that garners in my heart;
he put our lives so far apart
we cannot hear each other speak

dip down upon the northern shore
o sweet new~year delaying long;
thou doest expectant nature wrong
delaying long, delay no more

what stays thee from the clouded noons
thy sweetness from its proper place?
can trouble live with april days
or sadness in the summer moons?

bring orchis, bring the fox~glove spire
the little speedwell’s darling blue
deep tulips dasht with fiery dew
laburnums, dropping~wells of fire

o thou, new~year, delaying long
delayest the sorrow in my blood
that longs to burst a frozen bud
and flood a fresher throat with song

when i contemplate all alone
the life that had been thine below
and fix my thoughts on all the glow
to which thy crescent would have grown;

i see thee sitting crown’d with good
a central warmth diffusing bliss
in glance and smile, and clasp and kiss
on all the branches of thy blood;

thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;
for now the day was drawing on
when thou should’st link thy life with one
of mine own house, and boys of thine

had babbled ‘uncle’ on my knee;
but that remorseless iron hour
made cypress of her orange flower
despair of hope, and earth of thee

i seem to meet their least desire
to clap their cheeks, to call them mine
i see their unborn faces shine
beside the never~lighted fire

i see myself an honour’d guest
thy partner in the flowery walk
of letters, genial table~talk
or deep dispute, and graceful jest:

while now thy prosperous labour fills
the lips of men with honest praise
and sun by sun the happy days
descend below the golden hills

with promise of a morn as fair;
and all the train of bounteous hours
conduct by paths of growing powers
to reverence and the silver hair;

till slowly worn her earthly robe
her lavish mission richly wrought
leaving great legacies of thought
thy spirit should fail from off the globe;

what time mine own might also flee
as link’d with thine in love and fate
and, hovering o’er the dolorous strait
to the other shore, involved in thee

arrive at last the blessed goal
and he that died in holy land
would reach us out the shining hand
and take us as a single soul

what reed was that on which i leant?
ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake
the old bitterness again, and break
the low beginnings of content

this truth came borne with bier and pall
i felt it, when i sorrow’d most
’tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all~~~~

o true in word, and tried in deed
demanding, so to bring relief
to this which is our common grief
what kind of life is that i lead;

and whether trust in things above
be dimm’d of sorrow, or sustain’d;
and whether love for him have drain’d
my capabilities of love;

your words have virtue such as draws
a faithful answer from the breast
thro’ light reproaches, half exprest
and loyal unto kindly laws

my blood an even tenor kept
till on mine ear this message falls
that in vienna’s fatal walls
god’s finger touch’d him, and he slept

the great intelligences fair
that range above our mortal state
in circle round the blessed gate
received and gave him welcome there;

and led him through the blissful climes
and show’d him in the fountain fresh
all knowledge that the sons of flesh
shall gather in the cycled times

but i remain’d, whose hopes were dim
whose life, whose thoughts were little worth
to wander on a darken’d earth
where all things round me breathed of him

o friendship, equal~poised control
o heart, with kindliest motion warm
o sacred essence, other form
o solemn ghost! o crowned soul!

yet none could better know than i
how much of act at human hands
the sense of human will demands
by which we dare to live or die

whatever way my days decline
i felt and feel, though left alone
his being working in mine own
the footsteps of his life in mine;

a life that all the muses deck’d
with gifts of grace that might express
all~comprehensive tenderness
all~subtilising intellect:

and so my passion hath not swerved
to works of weakness, but i find
an image comforting the mind
and in my grief a strength reserved

likewise the imaginative woe
that loved to handle spiritual strife
diffused the shock through all my life
but in the present broke the blow

my pulses therefore beat again
for other friends that once i met;
nor can it suit me to forget
the mighty hopes that make us men

i woo your love: i count it crime
to mourn for any overmuch;
i, the divided half of such
a friendship as had master’d time;

which masters time indeed, and is
eternal, separate from fears
the all~assuming months and years
can take no part away from this:

but summer on the steaming floods
and spring that swells the narrow brooks
and autumn, with a noise of rooks
that gather in the waning woods

and every pulse of wind and wave
recalls, in change of light or gloom
my old affection of the tomb
and my prime passion in the grave:

my old affection of the tomb
a part of stillness, yearns to speak;
‘arise, and get thee forth and seek
a friendship for the years to come

i watch thee from the quiet shore;
thy spirit up to mine can reach;
but in dear words of human speech
we two communicate no more.’

and i ‘can clouds of nature stain
the starry clearness of the free?
how is it? canst thou feel for me
some painless sympathy with pain?’

and lightly does the whisper fall;
‘’tis hard for thee to fathom this;
i triumph in conclusive bliss
and that serene result of all.’

so hold i commerce with the dead;
or so methinks the dead would say;
or so shall grief with symbols play
and pining life be fancy~fed

now looking to some settled end
that these things pass, and i shall prove
a meeting somewhere, love with love
i crave your pardon, o my friend;

if not so fresh, with love as true
i, clasping brother~hands, aver
i could not, if i would, transfer
the whole i felt for him to you

for which be they that hold apart
the promise of the golden hours?
first love, first friendship, equal powers
that marry with the virgin heart

still mine that cannot but deplore
that beats within a lonely place
that yet remembers his embrace
but at his footstep leaps no more

my heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest
quite in the love of what is gone
but seeks to beat in time with one
that warms another living breast

ah, take the imperfect gift i bring
knowing the primrose yet is dear
the primrose of the later year
as not unlike to that of spring

sweet after showers, ambrosial air
that rollest from the gorgeous gloom
of evening over brake and bloom
and meadow, slowly breathing bare

the round of sp~ce, and rapt below
thro’ all the dewy~tassell’d wood
and shadowing down the h~rned flood
in ripples, fan my brows and blow

the fever from my cheek, and sigh
the full new life that feeds thy breath
throughout my frame, till doubt and death
ill brethren, let the fancy fly

from belt to belt of crimson seas
on leagues of odour streaming far
to where in yonder orient star
a hundred spirits whisper ‘peace.’

i past beside the reverend walls
in which of old i wore the gown;
i roved at random through the town
and saw the tumult of the halls;

and heard once more in college fanes
the storm their high~built organs make
and thunder~music, rolling, shake
the prophets blazon’d on the panes;

and caught once more the distant shout
the measured pulse of racing oars
among the willows; paced the shores
and many a bridge, and all about

the same gray flats again, and felt
the same, but not the same; and last
up that long walk of limes i past
to see the rooms in which he dwelt

another name was on the door:
i linger’d; all within was noise
of songs, and clapping hands, and boys
that crash’d the glass and beat the floor;

where once we held debate, a band
of youthful friends, on mind and art
and labour, and the changing mart
and all the framework of the land;

when one would aim an arrow fair
but send it slackly from the string;
and one would pierce an outer ring
and one an inner, here and there;

and last the master~bowman, he
would cleave the mark. a willing ear
we lent him. who, but hung to hear
the rapt oration flowing free

from point to point with power and grace
and music in the bounds of law
to those conclusions when we saw
the god within him light his face

and seem to lift the form, and glow
in azure orbits heavenly~wise;
and over those ethereal eyes
the bar of michael angelo

wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet
rings eden through the budded quicks
o tell me where the senses mix
o tell me where the passions meet

whence radiate: fierce extremes employ
thy spirits in the dusking leaf
and in the midmost heart of grief
thy passion clasps a secret joy:

and i~~my harp would prelude woe~~
i cannot all command the strings;
the glory of the sum of things
will flash along the chords and go

witch~elms that counterchange the floor
of this flat lawn with dusk and bright:
and thou, with all thy breadth and height
of foliage, towering sycamore;

how often, hither wandering down
my arthur found your shadows fair
and shook to all the liberal air
the dust and din and steam of town:

he brought an eye for all he saw;
he mixt in all our simple sports;
they pleased him, fresh from brawling courts
and dusky purlieus of the law

o joy to him in this retreat
immantled in ambrosial dark
to drink the cooler air, and mark
the landscape winking through the heat:

o sound to rout the brood of cares
the sweep of scythe in morning dew
the gust that round the garden flew
and tumbled half the mellowing pears!

o bliss, when all in circle drawn
about him, heart and ear were fed
to hear him, as he lay and read
the tuscan poets on the lawn:

or in the all~golden afternoon
a guest, or happy sister, sung
or here she brought the harp and flung
a ballad to the brightening moon:

nor less it pleased in livelier moods
beyond the bounding hill to stray
and break the livelong summer day
with banquet in the distant woods;

whereat we glanced from theme to theme
discuss’d the books to love or hate
or touch’d the changes of the state
or threaded some socratic dream;

but if i praised the busy town
he loved to rail against it still
for ‘ground in yonder social mill
we rub each other’s angles down

and merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss
the picturesque of man and man.’
we talk’d: the stream beneath us ran
the wine~flask lying couch’d in moss

or cool’d within the glooming wave
and last, returning from afar
before the crimson~circled star
had fall’n into her father’s grave

and brushing ankle~deep in flowers
we heard behind the woodbine veil
the milk that bubbled in the pail
and buzzings of the honied hours

he tasted love with half his mind
nor ever drank the inviolate spring
where nighest heaven, who first could fling
this bitter seed among mankind;

that could the dead, whose dying eyes
were closed with wail, resume their life
they would but find in child and wife
an iron welcome when they rise:

’twas well, indeed, when warm with wine
to pledge them with a kindly tear:
to talk them o’er, to wish them here
to count their memories half divine;

but if they came who past away
behold their brides in other hands:
the hard heir strides about their lands
and will not yield them for a day

yea, tho’ their sons were none of these
not less the yet~lov’d sire would make
confusion worse than death, and shake
the pillars of domestic peace

ah dear, but come thou back to me:
whatever change the years have wrought
i find not yet one lonely thought
that cries against my wish for thee

when rosy plumelets tuft the larch
and rarely pipes the mounted thrush;
or underneath the barren bush
flits by the sea~blue bird of march;

come, wear the form by which i know
thy spirit in time among thy peers;
the hope of unaccomplish’d years
be large and lucid round thy brow

when summer’s hourly~mellowing change
may breathe with many roses sweet
upon the thousand waves of wheat
that ripple round the lonely grange;

come: not in watches of the night
but where the sunbeam broodeth warm
come, beauteous in thine after form
and like a finer light in light

if any vision should reveal
thy likeness, i might count it vain
as but the canker of the brain;
yea, though it spake and made appeal

to chances where our lots were cast
together in the days behind
i might but say, i hear a wind
of memory murmuring the past

yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view
a fact within the coming year;
and tho’ the months, revolving near
should prove the phantom~warning true

they might not seem thy prophecies
but spiritual presentiments
and such refraction of events
as often rises ere they rise

i shall not see thee. dare i say
no spirit ever brake the band
that stays him from the native land
where first he walk’d when claspt in clay?

no visual shade of some one lost
but he, the spirit himself, may come
where all the nerve of sense is numb;
spirit to spirit, ghost to ghost

o, therefore from thy sightless range
with gods in unconjectured bliss
o, from the distance of the abyss
of tenfold~complicated change

descend, and touch, and enter; hear
the wish too strong for words to name;
that in this blindness of the frame
my ghost may feel that thine is near

how pure at heart and sound in head
with what divine affections bold
should be the man whose thought would hold
an hour’s communion with the dead

in vain shalt thou, or any, call
the spirits from their golden day
except, like them, thou too canst say
my spirit is at peace with all

they haunt the silence of the breast
imaginations calm and fair
the memory like a cloudless air
the conscience as a sea at rest:

but when the heart is full of din
and doubt beside the portal waits
they can but listen at the gates
and hear the household jar within

by night we linger’d on the lawn
for underfoot the herb was dry;
and genial warmth; and o’er the sky
the silvery haze of summer drawn;

and calm that let the tapers burn
unwavering: not a cricket chirr’d:
the brook alone far~off was heard
and on the board the fluttering urn:

and bats went round in fragrant skies
and wheel’d or lit the filmy shapes
that haunt the dusk, with ermine capes
and woolly br~~sts and beaded eyes;

while now we sang old songs that peal’d
from knoll to knoll, where, couch’d at ease
the white kine glimmer’d and the trees
laid their dark arms about the field

but when those others, one by one
withdrew themselves from me and night
and in the house light after light
went out, and i was all alone

a hunger seized my heart; i read
of that glad year which once had been
in those fall’n leaves which kept their green
the n0ble letters of the dead:

and strangely on the silence broke
the silent~speaking words, and strange
was love’s dumb cry defying change
to test his worth; and strangely spoke

the faith, the vigour, bold to dwell
on doubts that drive the coward back
and keen thro’ wordy snares to track
suggestion to her inmost cell

so word by word, and line by line
the dead man touch’d me from the past
and all at once it seem’d at last
his living soul was flash’d on mine

and mine in his was wound, and whirl’d
about empyreal heights of thought
and came on that which is, and caught
the deep pulsations of the world

æonian music measuring out
the steps of time~~the shocks of chance~~
the blows of death. at length my trance
was cancell’d, stricken thro’ with doubt

vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
in matter~moulded forms of speech
or ev’n for intellect to reach
thro’ memory that which i became:

till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d
the knolls once more where, couch’d at ease
the white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
laid their dark arms about the field:

and suck’d from out the distant gloom
a breeze began to tremble o’er
the large leaves of the sycamore
and fluctuate all the still perfume;

and gathering freshlier overhead
rock’d the full~foliaged elms, and swung
the heavy~folded rose, and flung
the lilies to and fro, and said

‘the dawn, the dawn,’ and died away;
and east and west, without a breath
mixt their dim lights, like life and death
to broaden into boundless day

you say, but with no touch of scorn
sweet~hearted, you, whose light~blue eyes
are tender over drowning flies
you tell me, doubt is devil~born

i know not: one indeed i knew
in many a subtle question versed
who touched a jarring lyre at first
but ever strove to make it true:

perplext in faith, but pure in deeds
at last he beat his music out
there lives more faith in honest doubt
believe me, than in half the creeds

he fought his doubts and gather’d strength
he would not make his judgment blind
he faced the spectres of the mind
and laid them: thus he came at length

to find a stronger faith his own;
and power was with him in the night
which makes the darkness and the light
and dwells not in the light alone

but in the darkness and the cloud
as over sinaï’s peaks of old
while israel made their gods of gold
altho’ the trumpet blew so loud

my love has talk’d with rocks and trees
he finds on misty mountain~ground
his own vast shadow glory~crown’d
he sees himself in all he sees

two partners of a married life~~
i look’d on these and thought of thee
in vastness and in mystery
and of my spirit as of a wife

these two~~they dwelt with eye on eye
their hearts of old have heat in tune
their meetings made december june
their every parting was to die

their love has never past away;
the days she never can forget
are earnest that he loves her yet
whate’er the faithless people say

her life is lone, he sits apart
he loves her yet, she will not weep
tho’ rapt in matters dark and deep
he seems to slight her simple heart

he thrids the labyrinth of the mind
he reads the secret of the star
he seems so near and yet so far
he looks so cold: she thinks him kind

she keeps the gift of years before
a wither’d violet is her bliss;
she knows not what his greatness is;
for that, for all, she loves him more

for him she plays, to him she sings
of early faith and plighted vows;
she knows but matters of the house
and he, he knows a thousand things

her faith is fixt and cannot move
she darkly feels him great and wise
she dwells on him with faithful eyes
‘i cannot understand: i love.’

you leave us: you will see the rhine
and those fair hills i sail’d below
when i was there with him; and go
by summer belts of wheat and vine

to where he breathed his latest breath
that city. all her splendour seems
no livelier than the wisp that gleams
on lethe in the eyes of death

let her great danube rolling fair
enwind her isles, unmarked of me:
i have not seen, i will not see
vienna; rather dream that there

a treble darkness, evil haunts
the birth, the bridal; friend from friend
is oftener parted, fathers bend
above more graves, a thousand wants

gnarr at the heels of men, and prey
by each cold hearth, and sadness flings
her shadow on the blaze of kings:
and yet myself have heard him say

that not in any mother town
with statelier progress to and fro
the double tides of chariots flow
by park and suburb under brown

of l~stier leaves; nor more content
he told me, lives in any crowd
when all is gay with lamps, and loud
with sport and song, in booth and tent

imperial halls, or open plain;
and wheels the circled dance, and breaks
the rocket molten into flakes
of crimson or in emerald rain

risest thou thus, dim dawn again
so loud with voices of the birds
so thick with lowings of the herds
day, when i lost the flower of men;

who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red
on yon swol’n brook that bubbles fast
by meadows breathing of the past
and woodlands holy to the dead;

who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
a song that slights the coming care
and autumn laying here and there
a fiery finger on the leaves;

who wakenest with thy balmy breath
to myriads on the genial earth
memories of bridal, or of birth
and unto myriads more, of death

o, wheresoever those may be
betwixt the slumber of the poles
to~day they count as kindred souls;
they know me not, but mourn with me

i wake, i rise: from end to end
of all the landscape underneath
i find no place that does not breathe
some gracious memory of my friend:

no gray old grange, or lonely fold
or low morass and whispering reed
or simple stile from mead to mead
or sheepwalk up the windy wold;

nor h~~ry knoll of ash and haw
that hears the latest linnet trill
nor quarry trench’d along the hill
and haunted by the wrangling daw;

nor runlet tinkling from the rock;
nor pastoral rivulet that swerves
to left and right thro’ meadowy curves
that feed the mothers of the flock;

but each has pleased a kindred eye
and each reflects a kindlier day;
and, leaving these, to pass away
i think once more he seems to die

unwatch’d the garden bough shall sway
the tender blossom flutter down
unloved that beech will gather brown
this maple burn itself away;

unloved, the sun~flower, shining fair
ray round with flames her disk of seed
and many a rose~carnation feed
with summer spice the humming air;

unloved, by many a sandy bar
the brook shall babble down the plain
at noon or when the lesser wain
is twisting round the polar star;

uncared for, gird the windy grove
and flood the haunts of hern and crake;
or into silver arrows break
the sailing moon in creek and cove;

till from the garden and the wild
a fresh association blow
and year by year the landscape grow
familiar to the stranger’s child;

as year by year the labourer tills
his wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
and year by year our memory fades
from all the circle of the hills

c

we leave the well~beloved place
where first we gazed upon the sky;
the roofs, that heard our earliest cry
will shelter one of stranger race

we go, but ere we go from home
as down the garden~walks i move
two spirits of a diverse love
contend for loving masterdom

one whispers, here thy boyhood sung
long since its matin song, and heard
the low love~language of the bird
in native hazels tassel~hung

the other answers, ‘yea, but here
thy feet have stray’d in after hours
with thy lost friend among the bowers
and this hath made them trebly dear.’

these two have striven half the day
and each prefers his separate claim
poor rivals in a losing game
that will not yield each other way

i turn to go: my feet are set
to leave the pleasant fields and farms;
they mix in one another’s arms
to one pure image of regret

on that last night before we went
from out the doors where i was bred
i dream’d a vision of the dead
which left my after morn content

methought i dwelt within a hall
and maidens with me: distant hills
from hidden summits fed with rills
a river sliding by the wall

the hall with harp and carol rang
they sang of what is wise and good
and graceful. in the centre stood
a statue veil’d, to which they sang;

and which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me
the shape of him i loved, and love
for ever: then flew in a dove
and brought a summons from the sea:

and when they learnt that i must go
they wept and wail’d, but led the way
to where a little shallop lay
at anchor in the flood below;

and on by many a level mead
and shadowing bluff that made the banks
we glided winding under ranks
of iris, and the golden reed;

and still as vaster grew the shore
and roll’d the floods in grander sp~ce
the maidens gather’d strength and grace
and presence, lordlier than before;

and i myself, who sat apart
and watch’d them, waxt in every limb;
i felt the thews of anakim
the pulses of a titan’s heart;

as one would sing the death of war
and one would chant the history
of that great race, which is to be
and one the shaping of a star;

until the forward~creeping tides
began to foam, and we to draw
from deep to deep, to where we saw
a great ship lift her shining sides

the man we loved was there on deck
but thrice as large as man he bent
to greet us. up the side i went
and fell in silence on his neck:

whereat those maidens with one mind
bewail’d their lot; i did them wrong:
‘we served thee here,’ they said, ‘so long
and wilt thou leave us now behind?’

so rapt i was, they could not win
an answer from my lips, but he
replying, ‘enter likewise ye
and go with us:’ they enter’d in

and while the wind began to sweep
a music out of sheet and shroud
we steer’d her toward a crimson cloud
that landlike slept along the deep

the time draws near the birth of christ;
the moon is hid, the night is still;
a single church below the hill
is pealing, folded in the mist

a single peal of bells below
that wakens at this hour of rest
a single murmur in the breast
that these are not the bells i know

like strangers’ voices here they sound
in lands where not a memory strays
nor landmark breathes of other days
but all is new unhallow’d ground

this holly by the cottage~eave
to night, ungather’d, shall it stand:
we live within the stranger’s land
and strangely falls our christmas eve

our father’s dust is left alone
and silent under other snows:
there in due time the woodbine blows
the violet comes, but we are gone

no more shall wayward grief abuse
the genial hour with mask and mime;
for change of place, like growth of time
has broke the bond of dying use

let cares that petty shadows cast
by which our lives are chiefly proved
a little spare the night i loved
and hold it solemn to the past

but let no footstep beat the floor
nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
for who would keep an ancient form
through which the spirit breathes no more?

be neither song, nor game, nor feast
nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown;
no dance, no motion, save alone
what lightens in the lucid east

of rising worlds by yonder wood
long sleeps the summer in the seed;
run out your measur’d arcs, and lead
the closing cycle rich in good

civ

ring out wild bells to the wild sky
the flying cloud, the frosty light:
the year is dying in the night;
ring out, wild bells, and let him die

ring out the old, ring in the new
ring, happy bells, across the snow:
the year is going, let him go;
ring out the false, ring in the true

ring out the grief that saps the mind
for those that here we see no more;
ring out the feud of rich and poor
ring in redress to all mankind

ring out a slowly dying cause
and ancient forms of party strife;
ring in the n0bler modes of life
with sweeter manners, purer laws

ring out the want, the care, the sin
the faithless coldness of the times;
ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
but ring the fuller minstrel in

ring out false pride in place and blood
the civic slander and the spite;
ring in the love of truth and right
ring in the common love of good

ring out old shapes of foul disease
ring out the narrowing l~st of gold;
ring out the thousand wars of old
ring in the thousand years of peace

ring in the valiant man and free
the larger heart, the kindlier hand;
ring out the darkness of the land
ring in the christ that is to be

cv

it is the day when he was born
a bitter day that early sank
behind a purple~frosty bank
of vapour, leaving night forlorn

the time admits not flowers or leaves
to deck the banquet. fiercely flies
the blast of north and east, and ice
makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves

and bristles all the brakes and th~rns
to yon hard crescent, as she hangs
above the wood which grides and clangs
its leafless ribs and iron h~rns

together, in the drifts that pass
to darken on the rolling brine
that breaks the coast. but fetch the wine
arrange the board and brim the glass;

bring in great logs and let them lie
to make a solid core of heat;
be cheerful~minded, talk and treat
of all things ev’n as he were by:

we keep the day. with festal cheer
with books and music, surely we
will drink to him whate’er he be
and sing the songs he loved to hear

i will not shut me from my kind
and, lest i stiffen into stone
i will not eat my heart alone
nor feed with sighs a passing wind:

what profit lies in barren faith
and vacant yearning, tho’ with might
to scale the heaven’s highest height
or dive below the wells of death?

what find i in the highest place
but mine own phantom chanting hymns?
and on the depths of death there swims
the reflex of a human face

i’ll rather take what fruit may be
of sorrow under human skies:
’tis held that sorrow makes us wise
whatever wisdom sleep with thee

heart~affluence in discursive talk
from household fountains never dry;
the critic clearness of an eye
that saw thro’ all the muses’ walk;

seraphic intellect and force
to seize and throw the doubts of man;
impassion’d logic, which outran
the hearer in its fiery course;

high nature amorous of the good
but touch’d with no ascetic gloom;
and passion pure in snowy bloom
thro’ all the years of april blood;

a love of freedom rarely felt
of freedom in her regal seat
of england, not the schoolboy heat
the blind hysterics of the celt;

and manhood fused with female grace
in such a sort, the child would twine
a trustful hand, unasked, in thine
and find his comfort in thy face;

all these have been, and thee mine eyes
have look’d on: if they look’d in vain
my shame is greater who remain
nor let thy wisdom make me wise

thy converse drew us with delight
the men of rathe and riper years:
the feeble soul, a haunt of fears
forgot his weakness in thy sight

on thee the loyal~hearted hung
the proud was half disarm’d of pride
nor cared the serpent at thy side
to fl!cker with his treble tongue

the stern were mild when thou wert by
the flippant put himself to school
and heard thee, and the brazen fool
was soften’d, and he knew not why;

while i, thy dearest, sat apart
and felt thy triumph was as mine;
and loved them more, that they were thine
the graceful tact, the christian art;

not mine the sweetness or the sk!ll
but mine the love that will not tire
and, born of love, the vague desire
that spurs an imitative will

the churl in spirit up or down
along the scale of ranks, thro’ all
to who may grasp a golden ball
by blood a king, at heart a clown;

the churl in spirit, howe’er he veil
his want in forms for fashion’s sake
will let his coltish nature break
at seasons thro’ the gilded pale:

for who can always act? but he
to whom a thousand memories call
not being less but more than all
the gentleness he seem’d to be

so wore his outward best, and join’d
each office of the social hour
to n0ble manners, as the flower
and native growth of n0ble mind;

nor ever narrowness or spite
or villain fancy fleeting by
drew in the expression of an eye
where god and nature met in light

and thus he bore without abuse
the grand old name of gentleman
defamed by every charlatan
and soil’d with all ign0ble use

high wisdom holds my wisdom less
that i, who gaze with temperate eyes
on glorious insufficiencies
set light by narrower perfectness

but thou, that fillest all the room
of all my love, art reason why
i seem to cast a careless eye
on souls, the lesser lords of doom

for what wert thou? some novel power
sprang up for ever at a touch
and hope could never hope too much
in watching thee from hour to hour

large elements in order brought
and tracts of calm from tempest made
and world~wide fluctuation sway’d
in vassal tides that followed thought

’tis held that sorrow makes us wise;
yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee
which not alone had guided me
but served the seasons that may rise;

for can i doubt who knew thee keen
in intellect, with force and sk!ll
to strive, to fashion, to fulfil~~
i doubt not what thou wouldst have been:

a life in civic action warm
a soul on highest mission sent
a potent voice of parliament
a pillar steadfast in the storm

should licensed boldness gather force
becoming, when the time has birth
a lever to uplift the earth
and roll it in another course

with many shocks that come and go
with agonies, with energies
with overthrowings, and with cries
and undulations to and fro

who loves not knowledge? who shall rail
against her beauty? may she mix
with men and prosper! who shall fix
her pillars? let her work prevail

but on her forehead sits a fire:
she sets her forward countenance
and leaps into the future chance
submitting all things to desire

half~grown as yet, a child, and vain~~
she cannot fight the fear of death
what is she, cut from love and faith
but some wild pallas from the brain

of demons? fiery~hot to burst
all barriers in her onward race
for power. let her know her place;
she is the second, not the first

a higher hand must make her mild
if all be not in vain; and guide
her footsteps, moving side by side
with wisdom, like the younger child:

for she is earthly of the mind
but wisdom heavenly of the soul
o, friend, who camest to thy goal
so early, leaving me behind

i would the great world grew like thee
who grewest not alone in power
and knowledge, but from hour to hour
in reverence and in charity

now fades the last long streak of snow
now burgeons every maze of quick
about the flowering squares, and thick
by ashen roots the violets blow

now rings the woodland loud and long
the distance takes a lovelier hue
and drown’d in yonder living blue
the lark becomes a sightless song

now dance the lights on lawn and lea
the flocks are whiter down the vale
and milkier every milky sail
on winding stream or distant sea;

where now the seamew pipes, or dives
in yonder greening gleam, and fly
the happy birds, that change their sky
to build and brood; that live their lives

from land to land; and in my breast
spring wakens too; and my regret
becomes an april violet
and buds and blossoms like the rest

is it, then, regret for buried time
that keenlier in sweet april wakes
and meets the year, and gives and takes
the colours of the crescent prime?

not all: the songs, the stirring air
the life re~orient out of dust
cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust
in that which made the world so fair

not all regret: the face will shine
upon me, while i muse alone;
the dear, dear voice that i have known
will speak to me of me and mine:

yet less of sorrow lives in me
for days of happy commune dead;
less yearning for the friendship fled
than some strong bond which is to be

o days and hours, your work is this
to hold me from my proper place
a little while from his embrace
for fuller gain of after bliss:

that out of distance might ensue
desire of nearness doubly sweet;
and unto meeting, when we meet
delight a hundredfold accrue

for every grain of sand that runs
and every span of shade that steals
and every kiss of toothed wheels
and all the courses of the suns

contemplate all this work of time
the giant labouring in his youth;
nor dream of human love and truth
as dying nature’s earth and lime;

but trust that those we call the dead
are breathers of an ampler day
for ever n0bler ends. they say
the solid earth whereon we tread

in tracts of fluent heat began
and grew to seeming~random forms
the seeming prey of cyclic storms
till at the last arose the man;

who throve and branch’d from clime to clime
the herald of a higher race
and of himself in higher place
if so he type this work of time

within himself, from more to more;
and, crown’d with attributes of woe
like glories, move his course, and show
that life is not as idle ore

but iron dug from central gloom
and heated hot with burning fears;
and dipp’d in baths of hissing tears
and batter’d with the shocks of doom

to shape and use. arise and fly
the reeling faun, the sensual feast;
move upward, working out the beast
and let the ape and tiger die

doors, where my heart was used to beat
so quickly, not as one that weeps
i come once more; the city sleeps;
i smell the meadow in the street;

i hear a chirp of birds; i see
betwixt the black fronts long~withdrawn
a light~blue lane of early dawn
and think of early days and thee

and bless thee, for thy lips are bland
and bright the friendship of thine eye;
and in my thoughts with scarce a sigh
i take the pressure of thine hand

i trust i have not wasted breath:
i think we are not wholly brain
magnetic mockeries; not in vain
like paul with beasts, i fought with death;

not only cunning casts in clay:
let science prove we are, and then
what matters science unto men
at least to me? i would not stay

let him, the wiser man who springs
hereafter, up from childhood shape
his action like the greater ape
but i was born to other things

sad hesper o’er the buried sun
and ready, thou, to die with him
thou watchest all things ever dim
and dimmer, and a glory done:

the team is loosen’d from the wain
the boat is drawn upon the shore;
thou listenest to the closing door
and life is darken’d in the brain

bright phosphor, fresher for the night
by thee the world’s great work is heard
beginning, and the wakeful bird;
behind thee comes the greater light:

the market boat is on the stream
and voices hail it from the brink;
thou hear’st the village hammer clink
and see’st the moving of the team

sweet hesper~phosphor, double name
for what is one, the first, the last
thou, like my present and my past
thy place is changed; thou art the same

oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then
while i rose up against my doom
and strove to burst the folded gloom
to bare the eternal heavens again

to feel once more, in placid awe
the strong imagination roll
a sphere of stars about my soul
in all her motion one with law;

if thou wert with me, and the grave
divide us not, be with me now
and enter in at breast and brow
till all my blood, a fuller wave

be quicken’d with a livelier breath
and like an inconsiderate boy
as in the former flash of joy
i slip the thoughts of life and death;

and all the breeze of fancy blows
and every dew~drop paints a bow;
the wizard lightnings deeply glow
and every thought breaks out a rose

there rolls the deep where grew the tree
o earth, what changes hast thou seen!
there where the long street roars, hath been
the stillness of the central sea

the hills are shadows, and they flow
from form to form, and nothing stands;
they melt like mist, the solid lands
like clouds they shape themselves and go

but in my spirit will i dwell
and dream my dream, and hold it true;
for tho’ my lips may breathe adieu
i cannot think the thing farewell

that which we dare invoke to bless;
our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt;
he, they, one, all; within, without;
the power in darkness whom we guess;

i found him not in world or sun
or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye;
nor thro’ the questions men may try
the petty cobwebs we have spun:

if e’er when faith had fall’n asleep
i heard a voice ‘believe no more’
and heard an ever~breaking shore
that tumbled in the godless deep;

a warmth within the breast would melt
the freezing reason’s colder part
and like a man in wrath the heart
stood up and answer’d ‘i have felt.’

no, like a child in doubt and fear:
but that blind clamour made me wise;
then was i as a child that cries
but, crying, knows his father near;

and what i seem beheld again
what is, and no man understands;
and out of darkness came the hands
that reach thro’ nature, moulding men

whatever i have said or sung
some bitter notes my harp would give
yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live
a contradiction on the tongue

yet hope had never lost her youth;
she did but look thro’ dimmer eyes;
or love but play’d with gracious lies
because he felt so fix’d in truth:

and if the song were full of care
he breathed the spirit of the song;
and if the words were sweet and strong
he set his royal signet there;

abiding with me till i sail
to seek thee on the mystic deeps
and this electric force, that keeps
a thousand pulses dancing, fail

love is and was my lord and king
and in his presence i attend
to hear the tidings of my friend
which every hour his couriers bring

love is and was my king and lord
and will be, tho’ as yet i keep
within his court on earth, and sleep
encompass’d by his faithful guard

and hear at times a sentinel
that moves about from place to place
and whispers to the vast of sp~ce
among the worlds, that all is well

and all is well, tho’ faith and form
be sunder’d in the night of fear;
well roars the storm to those that hear
a deeper voice across the storm

proclaiming social truth shall spread
and justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again
the red fool~fury of the seine
should pile her barricades with dead

but woe to him that wears a crown
and him, the lazar, in his rags:
they tremble, the sustaining crags;
the spires of ice are toppled down

and molten up, and roar in flood;
the fortress crashes from on high
the brute earth lightens to the sky
and the vast æon sinks in blood

and compass’d by the fires of h~ll
while thou, dear spirit, happy star
o’erlook’st the tumult from afar
and smilest, knowing all is well

the love that rose on stronger wings
unpalsied when he met with death
is comrade of the lesser faith
that sees the course of human things

no doubt vast eddies in the flood
of onward time shall yet be made
and throned races may degrade;
yet o ye ministers of good

wild hours that fly with hope and fear
if all your office had to do
with old results that look like new
if this were all your mission here

to draw, to sheathe a useless sword
to fool the crowd with glorious lies
to cleave a creed in sects and cries
to change the bearing of a word

to shift an arbitrary power
to cramp the student at his desk
to make old baseness picturesque
and tuft with grass a feudal tower;

why then my scorn might well descend
on you and yours. i see in part
that all, as in some piece of art
is toil cöoperant to an end

dear friend, far off, my lost desire
so far, so near in woe and weal;
o, loved the most when most i feel
there is a lower and a higher;

known and unknown, human, divine!
sweet human hand and lips and eye
dear heavenly friend that canst not die
mine, mine, for ever, ever mine!

strange friend, past, present, and to be
loved deeplier, darklier understood;
behold i dream a dream of good
and mingle all the world with thee

thy voice is on the rolling air;
i hear thee where the waters run;
thou standest in the rising sun
and in the setting thou art fair

what art thou then? i cannot guess;
but tho’ i seem in star and flower
to feel thee, some diffusive power
i do not therefore love thee less:

my love involves the love before;
my love is vaster passion now;
tho’ mix’d with god and nature thou
i seem to love thee more and more

far off thou art, but ever nigh;
i have thee still, and i rejoice;
i prosper, circled with thy voice;
i shall not lose thee tho’ i die

o living will that shalt endure
when all that seems shall suffer shock
rise in the spiritual rock
flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure

that we may lift from out the dust
a voice as unto him that hears
a cry above the conquer’d years
to one that with us works, and trust

with faith that comes of self~control
the truths that never can be proved
until we close with all we loved
and all we flow from, soul in soul

o true and tried, so well and long
demand not thou a marriage lay;
in that it is thy marriage day
is music more than any song

nor have i felt so much of bliss
since first he told me that he loved
a daughter of our house; nor proved
since that dark day a day like this;

tho’ i since then have number’d o’er
some thrice three years: they went and came
remade the blood and changed the frame
and yet is love not less, but more;

no longer caring to embalm
in dying songs a dead regret
but like a statue solid~set
and moulded in colossal calm

regret is dead, but love is more
than in the summers that are flown
for i myself with these have grown
to something greater than before;

which makes appear the songs i made
as echoes out of weaker times
as half but idle brawling rhymes
the sport of random sun and shade

but where is she, the bridal flower
that must be made a wife ere noon?
she enters, glowing like the moon
of eden on its bridal bower:

on me she bends her blissful eyes
and then on thee; they meet thy look
and brighten like the star that shook
betwixt the palms of paradise

o when her life was yet in bud
he too foretold the perfect rose
for thee she grew, for thee she grows
for ever, and as fair as good

and thou art worthy; full of power;
as gentle; liberal~minded, great
consistent; wearing all that weight
of learning lightly like a flower

but now set out: the noon is near
and i must give away the bride;
she fears not, or with thee beside
and me behind her, will not fear:

for i that danced her on my knee
that watch’d her on her nurse’s arm
that shielded all her life from harm
at last must part with her to thee;

now waiting to be made a wife
her feet, my darling, on the dead;
their pensive tablets round her head
and the most living words of life

breathed in her ear. the ring is on
the ‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again
the ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain
her sweet ‘i will’ has made ye one

now sign your names, which shall be read
mute symbols of a joyful morn
by village eyes as yet unborn;
the names are sign’d, and overhead

begins the clash and clang that tells
the joy to every wandering breeze;
the blind wall rocks, and on the trees
the dead leaf trembles to the bells

o happy hour, and happier hours
await them. many a merry face
salutes them~~maidens of the place
that pelt us in the porch with flowers

o happy hour, behold the bride
with him to whom her hand i gave
they leave the porch, they pass the grave
that has to~day its sunny side

to day the grave is bright for me
for them the light of life increas’d
who stay to share the morning feast
who rest to~night beside the sea

let all my genial spirits advance
to meet and greet a whiter sun;
my drooping memory will not shun
the foaming grape of eastern france

it circles round, and fancy plays
and hearts are warm’d and faces bloom
as drinking health to bride and groom
we wish them store of happy days

nor count me all to blame if i
conjecture of a stiller guest
perchance, perchance, among the rest
and, tho’ in silence, wishing joy

but they must go, the time draws on
and those white~favour’d horses wait;
they rise but linger, it is late;
farewell, we kiss, and they are gone

a shade falls on us like the dark
from little cloudlets on the grass
but sweeps away as out we pass
to range the woods, to roam the park

discussing how their courtship grew
and talk of others that are wed
and how she look’d, and what he said
and back we come at fall of dew

again the feast, the speech, the glee
the shade of passing thought, the wealth
of words and wit, the double health
the crowning cup, the three times three

and last the dance;~~till i retire:
dumb is that tower which spake so loud
and high in heaven the streaming cloud
and on the downs a rising fire:

and rise, o moon, from yonder down
till over down and over dale
all night the shining vapour sail
and pass the silent~lighted town

the white~faced halls, the glancing rills
and catch at every mountain head
and o’er the friths that branch and spread
their sleeping silver thro’ the hills;

and touch with shade the bridal doors
with tender gloom the roof, the wall;
and breaking let the splendour fall
to spangle all the happy shores

by which they rest, and ocean sounds
and, star and system rolling past
a soul shall draw from out the vast
and strike his being into bounds

and, moved thro’ life of lower phase
result in man, be born and think
and act and love, a closer link
betwixt us and the crowning race

of those that, eye to eye, shall look
on knowledge; under whose command
is earth and earth’s, and in their hand
is nature like an open book;

no longer half~akin to brute
for all we thought and loved and did
and hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
of what in them is flower and fruit;

whereof the man, that with me trod
this planet, was a n0ble type
appearing ere the times were ripe
that friend of mine who lives in god

that god, which ever lives and loves
one god, one law, one element
and one far~off divine event
to which the whole creation moves

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