Francis William Lauderdale Adams: Verses about Death

Death? is it death you give? So be it! O Death,
   thou hast been long my friend, and now thy pale
cool cheek shall have my kiss, while the faint breath
expires on thy still lips, O lovely Death!

Come then, loose hands, fair Life, without a wail!
   We've had good hours together, and you were sweet
what time love whispered with the nightingale,
tho' ever your music by the lark's would fail.

Come then, loose hands! Our lover time is done.
Now is the marriage with the eternal sun.
   The hours are few that rest, are few and fleet.
Good-bye! The game is lost: the game is won.

WAS it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? —
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!

All the heat and the glow and the hush
   of the summer afternoon;
the scent of the sweet-briar bush
   over bowing grass-blades and broom;

the birds that flit and pass;
   singing the song he knows,
the grass-hopper in the grass;
   the voice of the she-oak boughs.

Ah, and the shattered column
   crowned with the poet's wreath.
Who, who keeps silent and solemn
   his passing place beneath?

~This was a poet that loved God's breath;
   his life was a passionate quest;
he looked down deep in the wells of death,
   and now he is taking his rest.~

Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
Burst these fetters round you bound.
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
Lift your faces from the ground!
O Democracy, O People,
East and West and North and South,
Rise together, one for ever,
Strike this Crime upon the mouth!
Bid them not, the men who loved you,
Those who fought for you and died,
Scorn you that you broke a small Crime,
Left a great Crime pass in pride!
England, France, the played-out countries,
Let them reek there in their stew,
Let their past rot out their present,
But the Future is with you!
O America, O first-born
Of the age that yet shall be
Where all men shall be as one man,
Noble, faithful, fearless, free! —
O America, O paramour
Of the foul slave-owner Pelf,
You who saved from slavery others,
Now from slavery save yourself! —
Save yourself, though, anguish-shaken,
You cry out and bow your head,
Crying 'Why am I forsaken?'
Crying 'It is finishèd!'
Save yourself, no God will save you;
Not one angel can he give!
They and He are dead and vanished,
And 'tis you, 'tis you must live!
Risen again, fire-tried, victorious,
From the grave of Crime down-hurled,
Peerless, pure, serene and glorious,
Wield the sceptre of the world!

(Coral Sea, Australia)

I
DEAD in the sheep-pen he lies,
Wrapped in an old brown sail.
The smiling blue sea and the skies
Know not sorrow nor wail.
Dragged up out of the hold,
Dead on his last way home,
Worn-out, wizened, a Chinee old, —
O he is safe — at home!
Brother, I stand not as these
Staring upon you here.
One of earth's patient toilers at peace
I see, I revere!
II
In the warm cloudy night we go
From the motionless ship;
Our lanterns feebly glow;
Our oars drop and drip.
We land on the thin pale beach,
The coral isle's round us;
A glade of driven sand we reach;
Our burial ground's found us.
There we dig him a grave, jesting;
We know not his name.
What heeds he who is resting, resting?
Would I were the same!
Come away, it is over and done!
Peace and he shall not sever,
By moonlight nor light of the sun,
For ever and ever!
III
Dirge
'Sleep in the pure driven sand,
(No one will know)
In the coral isle by the land
Where the blue tides come and go.
'Alive, thou wert poor, despised;
Dead, thou canst have
What mightiest monarchs have prized,
An eternal grave!
'Alone with the lovely isles,
With the lovely deep,
Where the sea-winds sing and the sunlight smiles,
Thou liest asleep!'

GRAVE this deep in your hearts,
Forget not the tale of the past!
Never, never believe
That any will help you, or can,
Saving only Yourselves!
What have the Gentlemen done,
Peerless haters of wrong,
Byrons and Shelleys, what?
They stand great famous Names,
Demi-gods to their own,
Shadows far off, alien
To us and ours for ever.
Those who love them and hate
The crime, the injustice they hated,
What can they do but shout,
Win a name from our woes,
And leave us just as we were?
No, but resolutely turned,
Our wants, our desires made clear,
And clear the means that shall win them,
Drill and drill and drill!
Then when the day is come,
When the royal battleflag's up,
When blood has been spilled in vain
In timid half-hearted war,
Then let the Cromwell rise,
The simple, the true-souled Man;
Then let Grant come forth,
The calm, the determined Comrade,
But deep in their hearts one hate,
Deep in their souls one thought,
To bring the Iniquity low,
To make the People free!
Ah, for such as these,
We with the same heart-hate,
We with the same soul-thought,
Will fall to our destined places
In the ranks of the Great New Model,
In the Army that sees ahead
Marston, Naseby, Whitehall, The Wilderness, Petersburg — yes,
But beyond the blood and the smoke,
Beyond the struggle and death,
The Union victorious safe,
The Commonwealth glorious free!

YOU tell me these great lords have raised up Art?
I say they have degraded it. Look you,
When ever did they let the Poet sing,
The Painter paint, the Sculptor hew and cast,
The Music raise her heavenly voice, except
To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men?
Behold our English poets that were poor
Since these great lords were rich and held the state:
Behold the glories of the German land,
Poets, Musicians, driven, like them, to death
Unless they'd tune their spirits' harps to play
Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools
Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer.
I say, no Art was ever noble yet,
Noble and high, the speech of godlike men,
When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers.
All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best,
Comes from the Galilean peasant's hut, comes from
The Stratford village, the Ayrshire plough, the shop
That gave us Chaucer, the humble Milton's trade —
Bach's, Mozart's, great Beethoven's — and these are they
Who knew the People, being what they knew!
Wherefore, if in the future years no strain,
No picture of earth's glory like to what
Your Artists raised for that small clique or this
Of supercilious imbecilities —
O if no better demi-gods of Art
Can rise save those whose barbarous tinsel yet
Makes hideous all the beauty of old homes —
Then let us seek the comforts of despair
In democratic efforts dead and gone;
Weep with Pheideian Athens, sigh an hour
With Raffaelle's Florence, beat the head and breast
O'er Shakspere's England that from Milton's took
In lips the name that leaped from lead and flame
From out her heart against the Spanish guns!

(After reading his 'Modern Painters')
YES, you do well to mock us, you
Who knew our bitter woe —
To jeer the false, deny the true
In us blind-struggling low,
While, on your pleasant place aloft
With flowers and clouds and streams,
At our black sweat and toil you scoffed
That marred your idle dreams.
'Oh, freedom, what was that to us,'
(You'd shout down to us there),
'Except the freedom foul, vicious,
From all of good and fair?
'Obedience, faith, truth, chivalry,
To us were empty names.' —
The like to you (might we reply)
Whose noisy life proclaims
Presumption, want of human love,
Impatience, filthy breath,
The snob in soul who looks above,
Trampling on what's beneath.
When did you strive, in nobler part,
With love and gentleness,
To help one soul, to win one heart
To joy and hope and peace?
Go to, vain Prophet, without faith
In God who maketh new,
With hankerings for this putrid death,
This flesh-feast of the few,
This social structure of red mud,
This edifice of slime,
Whose bricks are bones, whose mortar's blood,
Whose pinnacle is Crime! —
Go to, for we who strain our power
For light and warmth and scope,
For wives', for children's happier hour,
Can teach you faith and hope.
Hark to the shout of those who cleared
The Missionary Ridge!
Look on those dead who never feared
The battle's bloody bridge!
Watch the stern swarm at that last breach
March up that came not thence —
And learn Democracy can teach
Divine obedience.
Pass through that South at last brought low
Where loyal freemen live,
And learn Democracy knows how
To utterly forgive.
Come then, and take this free-given bread
Of us who've scarce enough;
Hush your proud lips, bow down your head
And worship Human Love!

BEYOND the Night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of day released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of sun-pursuing morn.
Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death,
That hold my heart, I feel my New Life's breath, —
I see the face my Spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.
Beyond the Night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great cause, too, — sure as the Sun, you ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say:
I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!
When I was young, the Muse I worshipped took me,
Fearless, a lonely heart, to look on men.
''Tis yours,' said she, 'to paint this show of them
Even as they are.' Then smiling she forsook me.
Wherefore with passionate patience I withdrew,
With eyes from which all loves, hates, hopes and fears,
Joy's aureole and the blinding sheen of tears,
Were purged away. And what I saw I drew.
Then, as I worked remote, serene, alone,
A Child-girl came to me and touched my cheek;
And lo her lips were pale, her limbs were weak,
Her eyes had thirst's desire and hunger's moan.
She said: 'I am the Soul of this sad day
Where thousands toil and suffer hideous Crime,
Where units rob and mock the empty time
With revel and rank prayer and death's display.'
I said: 'O Child, how shall I leave my songs,
My songs and tales, the warp and subtle woof
Of this great work and web, in your behoof
To strive and passionately sing of wrongs?
'Child, is it nothing that I here fulfil
My heart and soul? that I may look and see
Where Homer bends, and Shakspere smiles on me,
And Goethe praises the unswerving will?'
She hung her head, and straight, without a word,
Passed from me. And I raised my conscious face
To where, in beauteous power in her place,
She stood, the Muse, my Muse, and watched and heard.
Her proud and marble brow was faintly flushed;
Upon her flawless lips and in her eyes
A mild light flickered as the young sunrise,
Glad, sacred, terrible, serene and hushed.
Then I cried out, and rose with pure wrath wild,
Desperate with hatred of Fate's slavery
And this cold cruel Demon. With that cry,
I left her and sought out the piteous Child.
'Darling, 'tis nothing that I shed and weep
These tears of fire that wither all the heart,
These bloody sweats that drain and sear and smart.
I love you, and you'll kiss me when I sleep!'

(For the Irish Delegates in Australia)

DO you want to hear a story,
With a nobler praise than 'glory,'
Of a man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like
hell?
Then, that story let me tell you
Once again, though it as well you
Know as I — the splendid story of the man they call Parnell!
By the wayside of the nations,
Lashed with whips and execrations,
Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying, she, the Maiden Nation, lay;
And the burthen of dishonour
Weighed so grievously upon her
That her very children hid their eyes and crept in shame away.
And there as she was lying
Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying,
All her high-born foes came round her, fleering, jeering, as they said:
'What is freedom fought and won for?
She is down! She's dead and done for!'
And her weeping children shuddered as they crouched and whispered:
'Dead!'
Then suddenly up-starting,
All that throng before him parting,
See, a Man with firm step breaking through you central knot that gives;
And, as by some dear lost sister,
He knelt down, and softly kissed her,
And he raised his pale, proud face, and cried: 'She is not dead. She lives!
'O she lives, I say, and I here,
I am come to fight and die here
For the love my heart has for her like a slow consuming fire;
For the love of her low-lying,
For the hatred deep, undying
Of the robber lords who struck and stabbed and trod her in the mire!'
Then upon that cry bewildering,
Some of them, her hapless children —
In their hearts there leaped up hope like light when night gives birth to
day;
And, as mocks and threats defied him,
One by one they came beside him,
Till they stood, a band of heroes, sombre, desperate, at bay!
And the battle that they fought there,
And the bitter truth they taught there
To the blinded Sister-Nation suffering grievously alway,
All the wrong and rapine past hers,
Of her lords and her task-masters,
Is not this the larger hope of all as night gives birth to day?
For the lords and liars are quaking
At the People's stern awaking
From their slumber of the ages; and the Peoples slowly rise,
And with hands locked tight together,
One in heart and soul for ever,
Watch the sun of Light and Liberty leap up into the skies!
That's the story, that's the story
With a nobler praise than 'glory,'
Of the Man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like
hell,
And with calm, proud exultation
Bade her stand at last a nation,
Ireland, Ireland that is one name with the name of Charles Parnell!

FROM the dusty jaded sunlight of the careless Cairo streets,
Through the open bedroom window where the pale blue held the
palms,
There came a sound of music, thrilling cries and rattling beats,
That startled me from slumber with a shock of sweet alarms
For beneath this rainless heaven with this music in my ears
I was born, and all my boyhood with its joy was glorified,
And for me the ranging Red-coats hold a passion of bright tears,
And the glancing of the bayonets lights a hell of savage pride.
So I leaped and ran, and looked,
And I stood, and listened there,
Till I heard the fifes and drums,
Till I heard the fifes and drums,
The fifes and drums of England
Thrilling all the alien air! —
And 'England, England, England,'
I heard the wild fifes cry,
'We are here to rob for England,
And to throttle liberty!'
And 'England, England, England,'
I heard the fierce drums roar,
'We are tools for pious swindlers
And brute bullies evermore!'
And the silent Arabs crowded, half-defiant, half-dismayed.
And the jaunty fifers fifing flung their challenge to the breeze,
And the drummers kneed their drums up as the reckless drumsticks
played,
And the Tommies all came trooping, tripping, slouching at their ease.
Ah Christ, the love I bore them for their brave hearts and strong
Ah! Christ, the hate that smote me for their stupid dull conceits —
I know not which was greater, as I watched their conquering bands
In the dusty jaded sunlight of the sullen Cairo streets.
And my dream of love and hate
Surged, and broke, and gathered there,
As I heard the fifes and drums,
As I heard the fifes and drums,
The fifes and drums of England
Thrilling all the alien air! —
And 'Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,'
I heard the wild fifes cry,
'Will you never know the England
For which men, not fools, should die?'
And 'Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,'
I heard the fierce drums roar,
'Will you always be a cut-throat
And a slave for evermore?'
No, I shall never see it with these weary death-dim eyes,
The hour of Retribution, the hour of Fate's desire,
When before the outraged millions, as at last — at last they rise,
The rogues and thieves of England are as stubble to the fire!
When the gentlemen of England, eaten out with lust and sin,
When the shop-keepers of England, sick with godly greed as well,
Face the Red-coats and the Red-shirts, as the steel-ring closes in
And hurls them, howling madly, down the precipice of hell!
But O, I knew, that hour,
Standing sick and dying there,
As I heard the fifes and drums,
As I heard the fifes and drums,
The fifes and drums of England
Thrilling all the alien air!
And 'Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,'
I heard the wild fifes cry,
'It is time to cease your fooling;
It is time to do or die!'
And 'Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie,'
I heard the fierce drums roar,
'It is time to break your fetters
And be free for evermore!'

(A Memory of August, 1883)

I STOOD in the ghastly gleaming night by the swollen, sullen flow
Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and
Woe;
And mine eyes were heavy with sleepless hours, and dry with desperate
grief,
And my brain was throbbing and aching, and mine anguish had no relief.
For never a moment — no; not one — through all the dreary day,
And thro' all the weary night forlorn, would the pitiless pulses stay
Of the thundering great Machinery that such insistence had,
As it crushed out human hearts and souls, that it slowly drove me mad.
And there, in the dank and foetid mist, as I, silent and tearless, stood,
And the river's exhalations, sweating forth their muddy blood,
Breathed full on my face and poisoned me, like the slow, putrescent
drain
That carries away from the shambles the refuse of flesh and brain —
There rose up slowly before me, in the dome of the city's light,
A vast and shadowy Substance, with shafts and wheels of might,
Tremendous, ruthless, fatal; and I knew the visible shape
Of that thundering great Machinery from which there was no escape.
It stood there high in the heavens, fronting the face of God,
And the spray it sprinkled had blasted the green and flowery sod
All round where, through stony precincts, its Cyclopean pillars fell
To its adamantine foundations that were fixed in the womb of hell.
And the birds that, wild and whirling, and moth-like, flew to its glare
Were struck by the flying wheel-spokes, and maimed and murdered
there;
And the dust that swept about its black panoply overhead,
And the din of it seemed to shatter and scatter the sheeted dead.
But mine eyes were fixed on the people that sought this horrible den,
And they mounted in thronged battalions, children and women and men,
Right out from the low horizon, more far than eye could see,
From the north and the south and the east and the west, they came
perpetually —
Some silent, some raving, some sobbing, some laughing, some cursing,
some crying,
Some alone, some with others, some struggling, some dragging the dead
and the dying,
Up to the central Wheel enormous with its wild devouring breath
That winnowed the livid smoke-clouds and the sickening fume of death.
Then suddenly, as I watched it all, a keen wind blew amain,
And the air grew clearer and purer, and I could see it plain —
How under the central Wheel a black stone Altar stood,
And a great, gold Idol upon it was gleaming like fiery blood.
And there, in front of the Altar, was a huge, round lurid Pit,
And the thronged battalions were marching to the yawning mouth of it
In the clangour of the Machinery and the Wheel's devouring breath
That winnowed the livid smoke-clouds and the sickening fume of death.
And once again, as I gazed there, and the keen wind still blew on,
I saw the shape of the Idol like a Queen turned carrion,
Yet crowned and more terrific thus for her human fleshly loss,
And with one clenched hand she brandished a lash, and the other held up
a cross!
And all around the Altar were seated, joyous and free,
In garments richly-coloured and choice, a goodly company,
Eating and drinking and wantoning, like gods that scorned to know
Of the thundering great Machinery and the crowds and the Pit below.
Ah, Christ! the sights and the sounds there that every hour befell
Would wring the heart of the devils spinning ropes of sand in hell,
But not the insolent Revellers in their old lascivious ease —
Children, hollow-eyed, starving, consumed alive with disease;
Boys and men tortured to fiends and branded with shuddering fire;
Women and girls shrieking caught, and whored, and trampled to death in
the mire;
Babyhood, youth, and manhood and womanhood that might have been,
Kneaded, a bloody, pulp, to feed the gold-grinding murderous Machine!
And still, with aching eyeballs, I stared at that hateful sight,
At the long dense lines of the people and the shafts and wheels of might,
When slowly, slowly emerging, I saw a great Globe rise,
Blood-red on the dim horizon, and it swam up into the skies.
But whether indeed it were the sun or the moon, I could not say,
For I knew not now in my watching if it were night or day.
But when that great Globe steadied above the central Wheel,
The thronged battalions wavered and paused, and an awful silence fell.
Then (I know not how, but so it was) in a moment the flash of an eye —
A murmur ran and rose to a voice, and the voice to a terrible cry:
'Enough, enough! It has had enough! We will march no more till we
drop
In the furnace Pit. Give us food! Give us rest! Though the accursed
Machinery stop!'
And then, with a shout of angry fear, the Revellers sprang to their feet,
And the call was for cannon and cavalry, for rifle and bayonet.
And One rose up, a leader of them, lifting a threatening rod,
And 'Stop the Machinery!' he yelled, 'you might as well stop God!'
But the terrible thunder-cry replied: 'If this indeed must be,
It is you should be cast to the furnace Pit to feed the Machine — not
we!'
And the central wheel enormous slowed down in groaning plight,
And all the aërial movement ceased of the shafts and wheels of might,
And a superhuman clamour leaped madly to where overhead
The great Globe swung in the gathering gloom, portentous, huge, bloodred!
But my brain whirled round and my blinded eyes no more could see or
know,
Till I struggling seemed to awake at last by the swollen sullen flow
Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and
Woe!

'Forty Years After'

COMRADE, yet a little further I would go before the night
Closes round and chills in darkness all the glorious sunset light —
Yet a little, by the cliff there, till the stately home I see
Of the man who once was with us, comrade once with you and me!
Nay, but leave me, pass alone there; stay awhile and gaze again
On the various-jewelled waters and the dreamy southern main,
For the evening breeze is sighing in the quiet of the hills,
Moving down in cliff and terrace to the singing sweet sea-rills,
While the river, silent-stealing, thro' the copse and thro' the lea
Winds her waveless way eternal to the welcome of the sea.
Yes, within that green-clad homestead, gardened grounds and velvet ease
Of a home where culture reigneth and the chambers whisper peace,
Is the Man, the Seer and Singer, who (ah, years and years away!)
Lifted up a face of gladness at the breaking of the day.
For the noontide's desperate ardours that had seen the Roman town
Wrap the boy Keats, 'by the hungry generations trodden down,'
In his death-shroud with the ashes of the fairy Child of Storm,
Fluttering skylark in the breakers, caught and smothered by the foam,
And had closed those eyes heroic, weary for the final peace,
Byron maimed and maddened, strangled in the anguish that was
Greece —
For this noontide passed to darkness, brooding doubt and wild dismay,
Where the silly sparrows chirruped and the eagles swooped away,
Till once more the trampled Peoples and the murdered soul of Man
Raised a haggard face half-wondering where the new-born Day began,
Where the sign of Faith's renewal, Faith's and Hope's, and Love's,
outgrew
In the golden sun arising; and we hailed it, we and you!
O you hailed it, and your heart beat, and your pretty woman's lays,
In the fathomless vibration of our rapturous amaze,
Died for ever on your harpstrings, and you rose and struck a chord
High, full, clear, heroic, godlike, 'for the glory of the Lord!'
Noble words you spoke; we listened; and we dreamed the day had come
When the faith of God and Christ should sound one cry with Man's
freedom —
When the men who stood beside us, eager with hell's troops to cope,
Radiant, thrilled exultant, proud, with the magnificence of hope!
'Forward! forward!' ran our watchword. 'Forward! forward!' by our
side
You gave back the glorious summons. Would that day that you had died!
Better lying fallen, death-struck, breathless, bleeding, on your face,
With your bright sword pointing onward, dying happy in your place!
Better to have passed in spirit from the battle-storm's eclipse
With the great Cause in your heart and with the war-shout on your lips!
Better to have fallen charging, having known the nobler time,
In the fiery cheer and impulse of our serried battle-line —
Than to stand and watch your comrades, in the hail of fire and lead,
Up the slopes and thro' the smoke-clouds, thro' the dying and the dead,
Till the sun strikes through a moment, to our one victorious shout,
On our bayonets bristling brightly as we carry the redoubt!
O half-hearted, pusillanimous, faltering heart and fuddled brain
That remembered Egypt's flesh-pots, and turned back and dreamed
again —
Left the plain of blood and battle for the quiet of the hills,
And the sunny soft contentment that the woody homestead fills.
There you sat and sang of Egypt, of its sober solid graves,
(Pyramids, you call them, Sphinxes), mortared with the blood of slaves,
Houses, streets and stately palaces, the mart, the regal stew
Where freedom 'broadens down' so slow it stops with lords and you!
O you mocked at our confusion, O you told us of our crimes,
Us ungentle, not like warriors of the sweet idyllic times,
Flowers of eunuch-hearted kings and courts where pretty poet knights
Tilted gaily, or slew stake-armed peasants, hundreds, in the fights?
O you drew the hideous picture of our bravest and our best,
Patient martyrs, desperate swordsmen, for the Cause that gives not
rest —
Men of science, 'vivisectors!' democrats, the 'rout of beasts' —
Writers, essayists and poets, 'Belial's prophets, Moloch's priests!'
Coward, you have made the great refusal! you have won the gilded
praise
Of the wringers of his heart's-blood from the peasant's sunless days,
Of the Lord and the Land-owner, of the Rich-man who has bound
Labour on the wheel to break him, strew his rent limbs on the ground,
With a vulture eye aglare on brothers, sisters that he had,
Crying 'Troops and guns to shoot them, if the hunger drive them mad!'
Coward, faithless, unbelieving, that had courage but to take
What of pleasure and of beauty men have won for manhood's sake,
Blustering long and loudest at the hideousness and pain
These you praise have brought upon us; blustering long and loud again
At our agony and anguish in this desperate fight of ours,
Grappling with anarch custom and the darkness and the powers!
O begone, then, from among us! Echo not, however faint,
Our great watch-word, our great war-shout, sweet and sickly poet saint!
Sit there dreaming in your gardens, looking out upon the sea,
Till the night-time closes round you and the wind is on the lea.
Enter then within your chambers in the rich and quiet light:
Never think of us who struggle in the tempest and the night.
Soothe your fancy with your visions; bend a gracious senile ear
To the praise your guests are murmuring in the tone you love to hear.
Honoured of your Queen, and honoured of the gentlest and the best,
Lord and commoner and rich-man, smirking tenant, shopman, priest,
All distinguished and respectable, the seamy sons of light,
O what, O what are these who call you coward in the night?
Ay, what are we who struggled for the cause of Science, say,
Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel, marshalling our stern array?
We who raised the cry for Culture, Goethe's spirit leading on,
Marching gladly with our captains, Renan, Arnold, Emerson?
We, we are not tinkers, tinkers of the kettle cracked and broke,
Tailors squatted cross-legged, patching at the greasy, worn-out cloak!
We are those that faced mad Fortune, cried: 'The Truth and only she!
Onward, upward! If we perish, we at least will perish free!'
We have lost our souls to win them, in the house and in the street
Falling stabbed and poisoned, making a victory of defeat.
We have lost life's happy present, we have paid death's heavy debt,
We have won, have won the Future, and its sons shall not forget!
Enter, then, within your chamber in the rich and quiet light:
Never think of us who struggle in the tempest and the night;
Spread your nostrils to the incense, hearken to the murmured hymn
Of the praising people, rising from the temple fair and dim.
Ah, but we here in the tempest, we here struggling in the night,
See the worshippers out-stealing; see the temple emptying quite;
See the godhead turning ghostlike; see the pride of name and fame
Paling slowly, sad and sickly, with forgetfulness and shame! . . .
Darker, darker grows the night now, louder, louder howls the wind;
I can hear the dash of breakers and the deep sea moves behind,
I can see the foam-capped phalanx rushing on the crumbling shore,
Slowly but surely shattering its rampart evermore.
Hark! my comrade's voice is calling, and his solitary cry
On the great dark swift air-currents like Fate's summons sweepeth by.
Farewell, then, whom once I loved so, whom a boy I thrilled to hear
Urging courage and reliance, loathing acquiescent fear.
I must leave you; I must wander to a strange and distant land,
Facing all that Fate shall give me with her hard unequal hand —
I once more anew must face them, toil and trouble and disease,
But these a man may face and conquer, for there waits him death and
peace
And the freedom from dishonour and denial e'er confessed
Of what he knows is truest, what most beautiful and best!
O farewell, then! I must leave you. You have chosen. You are right.
You have made the great refusal; you have shunned the wind and night.
You have won your soul, and won it — No, not lost it as they tell —
Happy, blest of gods and monarchs, O a long, a long farewell!
Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

I
DOWN in the woodlands, where the streamlet runs,
Close to the breezy river, by the dells
Of ferns and flowers that shun the summer suns
But gather round the lizard-haunted wells,
And listen to the birds' sweet syllables —
Down in the woodlands, lying in the shade,
Among the rushes green that shook and gleamed,
I, I whose songs were of my heart's blood made,
Found weary rest from wretchedness, it seemed,
And fell asleep, and as I slept, I dreamed.
II
I dreamed I stood beside a pillar vast
Close to a little open door behind,
Whence the small light there was stole in aghast,
And for a space this troubled all my mind,
To lose the sunlight and the sky and the wind.
For I could know, I felt, how all before,
Though high and wonderful and to be praised,
In heart and soul and mind oppressed me sore.
Nevertheless, I turned, and my face raised,
And on that pageant and its glory gazed.
The pillars, vast as this whereby I stood,
Hedged all the place about and towered up high,
Up, and were lost within a billowy cloud
Of slow blue-wreathing smoke that fragrantly
Rose from below. And a great chaunt and cry
Of multitudinous voices, with sweet notes,
Mingled of music solemn, glad, serene,
Swayed all the air and gave its echoes throats.
And priests and singers various, with proud mien,
Filled all the choir — a strange and wondrous scene.
And men and women and children, in all hues
Of colour and fresh raiment, filled the nave;
And yet it seemed, this vast place did refuse
Room for the mighty army that did crave,
And only to the vanguard harbourage gave.
And, as I gazed and watched them while they knelt
(Their prayers I watched with the incense disappear),
And could not know my thoughts of it, I felt
A touch upon mine arm, and in mine ear
Some words, and turned my face to see and hear.
There was a man beside me. In that light,
Tho' dim, remote, and shadowy, I could see
His face swarthy yet pale, and eyes like night,
With a strange, far sadness, looking at me.
It seemed as if the buffets of some sea
Had beaten on him as he faced it long.
The salty foam, the spittle of its wrath
Had blurred the bruises of its fingers strong,
Striking him pitilessly from out its path,
Yet had he braved it as the willow hath.
He turned his look from me and where we stood,
His far strange look of sadness, and it seemed
This temple vast, this prayerful multitude,
These priests and singers celebrant who streamed
In gorgeous ranks towards the fane that gleamed,
Were to him as some vision is, untrue,
Tho' true we take it, undeceived the while,
But, since it was unknown to him all through,
And hid some meaning (it might be of guile),
He turned once more, and spake in gentle style.
'Nay, this,' he said, 'is not the Temple, nor
The children of Israel these, whom less sufficed
Of chaunt and ritual. They whom we abhor,
The Phoenicians, to their gods have sacrificed!'
I said, 'Nay, sir, this is the Mass of Christ.'
'The Mass of Christ?' he murmured. And I said
'This is the day on which He came below,
And this is Rome, and far up overhead
Soars the great dome that bids the wide world know
St. Peter still rules o'er his Church below!'
'The Christ?' he said, 'and Peter, who are they?'
I answered, 'Jesus was he in the days long past,
And Peter was his chief disciple.' 'Nay,'
He answered, 'for of these the lot was cast
On poverty.' I said, 'That is all past!'
Then as I might, as for some stranger great
(Who saw all things under an unknown sun),
I told him of these things both soon and late,
Then, when I paused and turned, lo! he was gone,
Had left me, and I saw him passing on.
On, up the aisle, he passed, his long black hair
Upon his brown and common coat; his head
Raised, and his mien such aspect fixed did wear
As one may have whose spirit long is sped
(Though he still lives) among the mighty dead.
He paused not, neither swerved not, till he came
Unto the fane and steps. Nor there he learned
Awe, but went on, till rose a shrill acclaim,
And the High Priest from the great altar turned,
And raised the golden sign that blazed and burned.
And a slow horror grew upon us all —
On priests and people, and on us who gazed —
As that Great King, alive beneath the pall,
Heard his own death-service that moaned and praised
So all we were fearful, expectant, dazed.
Then unknown murmurs round the High Priest rose
Of men in doubt; and all the multitude
Swayed, as one seized in a keen travail's throes,
Where, on the last steps of the altar stood,
The Man — the altar steps all red like blood.
The singing ceased; the air grew clear and dead,
Save for the organ tones that sobbed and sighed.
In a hushed voice the High Priest gazing, said,
'Who are you?' and the Man straightway replied,
'I, I am Jesus whom they crucified!'
His voice was low yet every ear there heard,
And every eye was fixed upon him fast;
And, when he spake, the people all shuddered,
As a great corn-field at the south wind's blast,
And the Man paused, but spake again at last:
'I am the Galilean. I was born
Of Joseph and of Mary in Nazareth.
But God, our Father, left me not forlorn,
But breathèd in my soul his sacred breath,
That I should be his prophet, and fear not death.
'I taught the Kingdom of Heaven; the poor, the oppressed
I loved. The rich, the priests, did hear my cry
Of hate and retribution that lashed their rest.
Wherefore they caught and took and scourged me. I
Was crucified with the thieves on Calvary!'
At that it seemed the very stones did quake,
And a great rumour grew and filled the place;
The pillars, the roof, the dome above did shake,
And a fierce cry and arms surged up apace,
Like to a storm-cloud round that dark pale face.
And yet once more he spake, and we did hear:
'Who are you? What is this you do?' he said.
'I was the Christ. Who is this here
You worship?' From that silence of the dead,
'Tear him in pieces,' cried a voice and fled.
Howls, yells, and execrations, blazing eyes,
And threatening arms — it was unloosened hell!
And in the midst, seized, dragged along with cries
Of hate exultant, still I saw him well,
His strange sad face; then sickened, swooned, and fell!
* The Emperor Charles V., mightiest of mediaeval kings, had the weird
fancy to assist at a representation of his own death service.
III
Slowly from out that trance did I arouse;
Slowly, with pain, and all was weary and still,
Even as a dreamer dreams some sweet carouse,
And faints at touch of breath and lips that thrill,
And yet awakes and yet is dreaming still.
So I. And when my tired eyes look, mine ears,
Echoing those late noises, listen, and
I seek to know what 'fore me now appears,
For long I cannot know nor understand,
But lie as some wrecked sailor on the strand.
Then bit by bit I knew it — how I lay
On the hard stones, crouched by a pillar tall:
The wind blew bleak and raw; the skies were grey;
Up broad stone steps folk passed into the wall,
Both men and women: there was no sun at all.
I moved, I rose, I came close to, and saw;
And then I knew the place wherein I was;
Here in the city high, the ravening maw
Of all men's toil and kindly Nature's laws,
I stood, and felt the dreary winter's flaws.
And by me rose that lampless edifice
Of England's soul shrunk to a skeleton,
Whose dingy cross the grimy air doth pierce —
London, that hell of wastefulness and stone,
The piled bones of the sufferers dead and gone!
And, when I knew all this, and thought of it,
And thought of all the hateful hours and dread
That smirched my youth here, struck, and stabbed, and lit
The plundered shrine of trust and love that fled,
And left my soul stripped, bleeding worse than dead,
Wrath grew in me. For all around I knew
The accursèd city worked on all the same,
For all the toiling sufferers. The idle few,
The vermin foul that from this dung-heap came,
Made of our agony their feast and game.
And when, with hands clenched tight, with eyes of fire,
Sombre and desperate, I moved on apace,
Within my soul brooded a dark desire;
I reached the stream of those who sought this place,
And turned with them and saw a sudden face.
I knew it, as it was there, meeting mine —
I knew it with its strange sad gaze, the eyes
Night-like. Yet on it now no more did shine,
As 'twere that inner light of victories,
Won from the fiend that lives by the god that dies.
But very weary, as my waking was,
But stunned, it seemed, and as if cowed at last,
Were look and bearing of him: I felt the cause
Even as I looked. My wrath and thought were passed
I came and took his arm and held it fast.
And, as some fever-struck delirious man,
In some still pausing of his anguish-throes,
Forgetful of it all, how it began,
Rises from off his bed and dons his clothes,
And seeks (his footsteps seek) some place he knows;
And there he wanders voiceless, like a ghost,
His weariness confusing him, until
Worn-out, he helplessly perceives he's lost:
So was he here, this man, stricken and still —
Day, place, folk, all incomprehensible!
My hold aroused him. We looked face in face,
And in a little I could watch the wonder,
'Where he had seen me,' in his great eyes, chase
The torpor and oblivion asunder.
Close by there was a porch, I drew him under.
There, after pause, I asked, 'What do you here?'
He said: 'I came, I think, to seek and see
Something which I much long for and yet fear.
I have passed over many a land and sea
I never knew: my Father guided me.
'I think,' he said, 'that I am come to find
Here, in this cold dark place, what in that blue
And sunny south but wounded all my mind.
But I am weary and cannot see things true,
There is a cloud around me. And with you?'
'Come, then,' I said, 'come then, if you must know
What that great saint hath done for us, who is
The second builder of your Church below.
Paul, that was Saul, the Prince of Charities!
He saw you once. Now see him once — in this!'
We went out side by side into the stream
Of folk that passed on upwards thro' the wall
(There was a gateway there), and in the beam
Of the dull light we stood and pillars tall,
And I said 'Look,' and he looked at it all.
Somewhat it was as he had seen before,
Yet darker, gloomier, though some hues were gay.
For all these people had, it seemed, full store
Of quiet ease, and loved the leisured day;
They sang of joy, but little joy had they.
It was the function of the rich, of those
To whom contentment springs from booty's fill,
Gorged to a dull, religious, rank repose.
He raised his voice. He spake the words, 'I will!'
There came a sound from some about, 'Be still!'
Heedless, as one begrimed with blood and smoke,
The leader of a charge shattered in rout,
Strips off his tatters and bids the ranks re-yoke,
And leads them back to carry the redoubt,
So was he, strong once more, and resolute.
But, as he moved into the aisle, there rose
Men round him, grim and quiet, and a hand
Firmly upon each arm and wrist did close,
And held him like an engine at command.
He cried: 'Loose me! You do not understand!'
'Loose me,' he cried, 'I, Jesus, come to tell——'
No answer made they, but without a word
Moved him away. Their office they knew well
With the impious outcasts who the good disturb
In their worship of their Queen and of their Lord.
'Twas finished ere we heard him. At the door
They thrust him out, and I, who followed him,
Knowing that he could enter it no more,
Led him away, his faltering steps, his slim
Frail form within mine arm; his eyes were dim.
Out and away from this I gently guided
Through wretched streets I knew. (Is not my blood
Upon their stones?). A few poor sots derided,
But we passed on unheeding, as we could,
Till by a little door we paused and stood.
We entered. 'Twas a chamber bare and small,
With chairs and benches and a table. There
Some six or seven men sat: I knew them all.
I said, 'Food, food and drink!' Some did repair
At once, without a word, to bring their fare.
He sat down by the table listless. But
When bread was brought him, water, and red wine,
Slowly his white waste hand he stretched, and put
On to the bread and brake it; a divine
Smile touched his lips, and on his brow did shine.
They gathered round him with strange quiet glances,
These soldiers of the army Night hath tried,
One spake the question of their countenances —
'Who are you?' Then he whisperingly replied,
'I, I am Jesus, whom they crucified!'
At that a murmur rang among them all.
There was one man so white he seemed as dead,
Save for his eyes, and when he heard them call:
'Christ, it is Christ,' he bent to him his head,
And the thin bitter lips hissed as they said:
'The name of Christ has been the sovereign curse,
The opium drug that kept us slaves to wrong.
Fooled with a dream, we bowed to worse and worse;
‘In heaven,’ we said, ‘He will confound the strong.’
O hateful treason that has tricked too long!
'Had we poor down-trod millions never dreamed
Your dream of that hereafter for our woe,
Had the great powers that rule, no Father seemed,
But Law relentless, long and long ago
We had risen and said, ‘We will not suffer so.’
'O Christ, O you who found the drug of heaven,
To keep consoled an earth that grew to hell,
That else to cleanse and cure its sores had striven,
We curse that name!' A fierce hard silence fell,
And Jesus whispered, 'Oh, and I as well!'
He raised his face! See, on the Calvary hill,
Submissive with such pride, betrayed and taken,
Transfixed and crucified, the prey of ill,
Of a cup less bitter had he there partaken,
He then by God, as now by Man, forsaken!
'Vain, was it vain, all vain?' had mocked him then;
Now the triumphant gibe of hell had said,
'Not vain! a curse, a speechless curse to men!'
His great eyes gazed on it. He bowed his head,
Without a word, and shuddered. He was dead!
And when I saw this, with a low hoarse cry
I caught him to mine arms and to my breast,
And put my lips to his that breathed one sigh,
And kissed his eyes, and by his name addressed
My Friend, my Master, him whom I loved best.
'Jesus,' I whispered, 'Jesus, Jesus, speak!'
For it did seem that speech from him must break;
But suddenly I knew he would not speak,
Never, never again! My heart did shake:
My stricken brain burst; I shrieked and leaped awake.
IV
Down in the woodlands, where the streamlet runs,
Close to the breezy river, by the dells,
Of ferns and flowers that shun the summer suns
But gather round the lizard-haunted wells,
And listen to the birds' sweet syllables —
Down in the woodlands, lying in the shade,
Among the rushes green that shook and gleamed,
I woke and lay, and of my dream dreams made,
Wondering if indeed I had but dreamed,
Or dreamed but now, so real that dream had seemed.
Then up above I saw the turquoise sky,
And, past the blowy tree-tops swung aloft,
Two pigeons dared the breeze ecstatically,
And happy frogs, couched in the verdure soft,
Piped to each other dreamily and oft.
And, as I looked across the flowery woods,
Across the grasses, sun and shade bedight,
Under the leaves' melodious interludes,
Flowing one way, the blessèd birds' delight,
I saw her come, my love, clothed on with light!
Flowers she had, and in her hair and hands,
Singing and stooping, gathering them with words,
Whose music is past all speech understands,
But God is glad thereof, as of his birds;
I watched her, listening, till I heard the words
Leap from her lips of a bold battle-song,
The clarion clear that silences the strife.
She marched exultantly to it along,
No more a joyous girl, a sacred wife,
But a soldier of the Cause that's more than life!
O well I knew the song that she was singing,
But now she gave her music to my rhyme,
Her rapturous music thro' the wild woods ringing,
Asserting Truth and Trust, arraigning Crime,
And bidding Justice 'bring the better time!'
O Love, sing on, sing on, O girt with light,
Shatter the silence of the hopeless hours;
O mock with song triumphant all the night,
O girl, O wife, O crowned with fruits and flowers,
Till day and dawn and victory are ours!