Upon the orient utmost of the land,
Enfranchised of the world, alone, and free,
I stood; before me, and on either hand,
The interminable solace of the sea.

A white-winged hour of heaven, a fugitive
Of which the angels wist not, hither fled,
Whose plumy, rustling whispers bid me live
Its length of moments as if grief were dead.

Oh memorable hour of beauteous things!
The heaving azure melting into light;
The chequered sport of fleet o'ershadowings;
The nearer emerald curling into white;

The shoreward billows merging each in each,
To sunder yet again, fold, and unfold;
The shining curve of far-receptive beach;
The silvery wave-kiss on the gladdened gold;

The grandeur of the lone old promontory;
The distant bourne of hills in purple guise,
Athrob with soft enchantment; high in glory
The peak of Warning bosomed in the skies!

Oh all too fair to be so seldom seen,
This shadowy purple on the mountains sleeping—
This sapphire of unutterable sheen—
This beauty-harvest ever ripe for reaping!

For what high end is all this daily boon,
Unseen of man, in sightless silence spent?
Doth lavish Nature vainly importune
The unconscious witness of the firmament?

Or is it that the influent God, whose breath
Informs with glory sea and shore and hill,
His infinite lone rejoicing nourisheth
Upon the beauteous outcome of His will?
Or is it but a patient waiting-while
Against a day when many an eye shall bless,
From lowly cottage and imperial pile,
This wide tranquillity of loveliness;—

Against a day of many-thronging feet,
Of virtues, valours, all that builds and saves—

Of human loves responsive to the sweet
Melodious importunity of waves?

I only know that this empurpled range,
This golden shore, this great transcendent sea,
Are now a memory that will not change
Till I become as they—a memory.

My Other Chinee Cook

Yes, I got another Johnny; but he was to Number One
As a Satyr to Hyperion, as a rushlight to the sun;
He was lazy, he was cheeky, he was dirty, he was sly,
But he had a single virtue, and its name was rabbit pie.

Now those who say the bush is dull are not so far astray,
For the neutral tints of station life are anything but gay;
But, with all its uneventfulness, I solemnly deny
That the bush is unendurable along with rabbit pie.

We had fixed one day to sack him, and agreed to moot the point
When my lad should bring our usual regale of cindered joint,
But instead of cindered joint we saw and smelt, my wife and I,
Such a lovely, such a beautiful, oh! such a rabbit pie!

There was quite a new expression on his lemon-coloured face,
And the unexpected odour won him temporary grace,
For we tacitly postponed the sacking-point till by-and bye,
And we tacitly said nothing save the one word, “rabbit pie!”

I had learned that pleasant mystery should simply be endured,
And forebore to ask of Johnny where the rabbits were procured!
I had learned from Number One to stand aloof from how and why,
And I threw myself upon the simple fact of rabbit pie.

And when the pie was opened, what a picture did we see!
They lay in beauty side by side, they filled our home with glee!
How excellent, how succulent, back, neck, and leg, and thigh!
What a noble gift is manhood! What a trust is rabbit pie!

For a week the thing continued, rabbit pie from day to day;
Though where he got the rabbits John would ne'er vouchsafe to say;
But we never seemed to tire of them, and daily could descry
Subtle shades of new delight in each successive rabbit pie.

Sunday came; by rabbit reckoning, the seventh day of the week;
We had dined, we sat in silence, both our hearts (?) too full to speak,
When in walks Cousin George, and, with a sniff, says he, “Oh my!
What a savoury suggestion! what a smell of rabbit pie!”
“Oh, why so late, George?” says my wife, “the rabbit pie is gone;
But you must have one for tea, though. Ring the bell, my dear, for John.”
So I rang the bell for John, to whom my wife did signify,
“Let us have an early tea, John, and another rabbit pie.”

But John seemed taken quite aback, and shook his funny head,
And uttered words I comprehended no more than the dead;

“Go, do as you are bid,” I cried, “we wait for no reply;
Go! let us have tea early, and another rabbit pie!”

Oh, that I had stopped his answer! But it came out with a run:
“Last-a week-a plenty puppy; this-a week-a puppy done!”
Just then my wife, my love, my life, the apple of mine eye,
Was seized with what seemed “mal-de-mer,” — “sick transit” rabbit pie!

And George! By George, he laughed, and then he howled like any bear!
The while my wife contorted like a mad “convulsionnaire;”
And I—I rushed on Johnny, and I smote him hip and thigh,
And I never saw him more, nor tasted more of rabbit pie.

And the childless mothers met me, as I kicked him from the door,
With loud maternal wailings and anathemas galore;
I must part with pretty Tiny, I must part with little Fly,
For I'm sure they know the story of the so-called “rabbit pie.”

Daughter of Eve, draw near—I would behold thee.
Good Heavens! Could ever arm of man enfold thee?
Did the same Nature that made Phryne mould thee?

Come thou to leeward; for thy balmy presence
Savoureth not a whit of mille-fleurescence:—
My nose is no insentient excrescence.

Thou art not beautiful, I tell thee plainly,
Oh! thou ungainliest of things ungainly;
Who thinks thee less than hideous doats insanely.

Most unaesthetical of things terrestrial,
Hadst thou indeed an origin celestial?—
Thy lineaments are positively bestial!

Yet thou my sister art, the clergy tell me;
Though, truth to state, thy brutish looks compel me
To hope these parsons merely want to sell me.

A hundred times and more I've heard and read it;
But if Saint Paul himself came down and said it,
Upon my soul I could not give it credit.

“God's image cut in ebony,” says someone;
'Tis to be hoped some day thou may'st become one;
The present image is a very rum one.
Thy face “the human face divine!” . . . Oh, Moses!
Whatever trait divine thy face discloses,
Some vile Olympian cross-play pre-supposes.

Thy nose appeareth but a transverse section:
Thy mouth hath no particular direction,—
A flabby-rimmed abyss of imperfection.

Thy skull development mine eye displeases;
Thou wilt not suffer much from brain diseases;
Thy facial angle forty-five degrees is.

The coarseness of thy tresses is distressing,
With grease and raddle firmly coalescing,
I cannot laud thy system of “top-dressing.”

Thy dress is somewhat scant for proper feeling;
As is thy flesh, too,—scarce thy bones concealing:
Thy calves unquestionably want re-vealing.

Thy rugged skin is hideous with tattooing,
And legible with hieroglyphic wooing—
Sweet things in art of some fierce lover's doing.

For thou some lover hast, I bet a guinea,—
Some partner in thy fetid ignominy,
The raison d'être of this piccaninny.

What must he be whose eye thou hast delighted?
His sense of beauty hopelessly benighted!
The canons of his taste how badly sighted!

What must his gauge be, if thy features pleased him?
If lordship of such limbs as thine appeased him,
It was not “calf-love” certainly that seized him.

And is he amorously sympathetic?
And doth he kiss thee? . . . Oh my soul prophetic!
The very notion is a strong emetic!

And doth he smooth thine hours with oily talking?
And take thee conjugally out-a-walking?
And crown thy transports with a tom-a-hawking?

I guess his love and anger are combined so;
His passions on thy shoulders are defined so;
“His passages of love” are underlined so.

Tell me thy name. What? . . . Helen? . . . (Oh, OEnone,
That name bequeathed to one so foul and bony
Avengeth well thy ruptured matrimony!)

Eve's daughter! with that skull! and that complexion?
What principle of “Natural Selection”
Gave thee with Eve the most remote connection?

Sister of L. E. L. . . . of Mrs. Stowe, too!
Of E. B. Browning! Harriet Martineau, too!
Do theologians know where fibbers go to?

Of great George Eliot, whom I worship daily!
Of Charlotte Brontë! and Joanna Baillie!—
Methinks that theory is rather “scaly.”

Thy primal parents came a period later—
The handiwork of some vile imitator;
I fear they had the devil's imprimatur.

This in the retrospect.—Now, what's before thee?
The white man's heaven, I fear, would simply bore thee;
Ten minutes of doxology would floor thee.

Thy Paradise should be some land of Goshen,
Where appetite should be thy sole devotion,
And surfeit be the climax of emotion;—

A land of Bunya-bunyas towering splendid,—
Of honey-bags on every tree suspended,—
A Paradise of sleep and riot blended;—

Of tons of 'baccy, and tons more to follow,—
Of wallaby as much as thou couldst swallow,—
Of hollow trees, with 'possums in the hollow;—

There, undismayed by frost, or flood, or thunder,
As joyous as the skies thou roamest under,
There shouldst thou . . . Oooey! . . Stop! She's off.
. . . No wonder.

(A SPRING CONTRAST.)
A quarter of a century agone,
Just such a face as this upon me shone,
And in a 'bus too;
And then, as now, it was the warm springtide;
And then, as now, there was no soul inside
Excepting us two.

There are the same blue eyes, the delicate nose.
Same rosebud mouth, and cheeks of blushful rose,
Same chin bewitching;
Same throat of sheeny white and perfect mould,
Same light-brown hair, with scattered threads of gold
The brown enriching.
Ah! how this present beauty's counterpart
Woke instant tumult in my fluttering heart—
Pain, pleasure, blended!
Yet this one is as beautiful as that . .
Dear me! why don't my heart go pit-a-pat
Now, as it then did?

One glance of those bright eyes, and all was o'er:
I wished to die; at least I cared no more
For life without her:—
These, glancing on me now, are quite as fair;
Yet, strange to say, I do not seem to care
One bit about her.

I wished I were a glove upon that hand—
The eardrop in her ear, the zone that spanned
Her waist so trimly;
And now, in view of equal charms, the bliss
Of such astounding metamorphosis
I see but dimly.

Well I recall the mad desire to hear
Her name who turned the common atmosphere
To heavenly ether:—
Why is it that I do not now, as then,
Care twopence if the name be M. or N.,
Or both, or neither?

Well I remember how I longed to pay
Her fare, or in some other lordly way

Impress her duly:—
Why is it, then, though not less generous grown,
I'm better pleased this nymph should pay her own
Than mulct “yours truly”?

And how quick-soaring hope as quickly fell
When I descried a military swell
Her brooch portrayed in;
Why is it, then, 'twould leave me undistressed
If a whole regiment adorned the breast
Of this fair maiden?

And how my anguish, when she drew her glove,
And showed the plain gold sign of wedded love,
Refused assuagement:—
Why is it that I do not care a jot
If this one wears such fateful ring, or not—
Plain, or engagement?

Is it because my taste hath changed its style,
And now prefers, in place of Venus' smile,
The frown of Pallas?
Ah no: Minerva, too, has lost her sway;
I met her antitype this very day,
And felt quite callous.

Is it the climate? Ah, if vernal airs
Incline the heart to amorous affairs,
This Austral season
Should stir in every vein, when beauty's by,
The throb of lusty youth! Oh no; the cli-
mate's not the reason.

Is it the place! Still, no; this threepenny 'bus
Is much the same as rolled the twain of us
Through Piccadilly;
And fitter place, when all is said and done,
There could not be for “bussing.” (Pass the pun;
I know it's silly.)

Is it that I have learned their sweetest smiles
And airs and graces are but “wanton wiles,”
And mere pretences?
Or is it that the naked eye of youth
Sees all through glamour, while I see the truth
Through convex lenses?

But wherefore beat about the bush, old man?
You know that you can give, if any can,
Reasons in plenty.

Must I, then, own it?.. 'Tis—because—because—
I am not quite—not quite—the man I was
At five-and-twenty!

An empty socket shows where passion burned;
My sense of beauty now, alas, has turned
Pure intellectual,
And to arouse a tumult in the brain,
Or thrill the system with delicious pain,
Quite ineffectual.

So, I may gaze on her, and gaze my fill. . . .
D'ye know, I think I'm somewhat human still;
I like her, rather;
But oh, how things are changed from what they were!
For all she is so fair, I feel to her
Just like a father.

She dowers me with a smile from lip and eye,
And while I wonder what she meaneth by
The sweet bestowment,
“Please pass my fare,” comes from her beauteous lips,
And, as I take the coin, our finger tips
Meet for a moment.

A thrill! A thrill! I do declare, a thrill!
Upon my honour, I believe I'm still
Intensely human!
I pause and ponder what I mean to do.
Methinks I'd better scuttle home unto
My own old woman.

The Angel Of The Doves

The angels stood in the court of the King,
And into the midst, through the open door,
Weeping came one whose broken wing
Piteously trailed on the golden floor.

Angel was she, and woman, and dove:
Dove and angel all womanly blent
With the virginal charm that is worshipped of love
On the hither side of the firmament.

Where a rainbow hideth the holiest place,
Thither she moved, and there she kneeled;
And fain with her wings would have veiled her face,
Ere the bow should be lifted, and God revealed.

'Tis the angels' wont; and afresh she wept,
As with maimèd pinion she strove in vain,
And tremor on tremor convulsively swept
O'er her plumes in a shuddering iris of pain.

And the angels who dwell from sorrow remote
Gazed on her woe as a marvellous thing;
For they wist but of pain from its echoes that float
In the strange new songs that the ransomed sing.

“Sister,” at length said a shining one,
“To whom earth's doves for a care were given,
What hast thou done, or left undone,
That grief through thee should be known in heaven?

“When together for joy the angels sang,
Calling the new-made world to rejoice,
Sweeter than all hosannas that rang
Was the trembling rapture that thrilled thy voice.

“For thine was the grace to minister there—
Oh, favoured child of the heavenly host!—
To the sacred and lovely lives that wear
The mystic shape of the Holy Ghost.
“And we marked thy flight as the flight of a dove,
Till the luminous vapours around thee curled,
And we said, ‘She is glad in her errand of love
To the happy glades of the new-born world.’

“And now thou returnest woe-stricken as one
That hath fallen from grace and is unforgiven.

What hast thou done, or left undone,
That grief through thee should be known in heaven?”

Faint was her voice as an echo heard
From the past by the soul in dreamful mood;
Sweet and sad as the plaint of a bird
Mourning forlorn in solitude.

“I tended my doves,” she said through her tears,
“By day and by night, in storm and calm.
Happily flew the uncounted years
In bowers of myrtle and groves of palm.

“Many, alas, were the beautiful dead,
But the life of the race was always new,
For, ever ere one generation fled,
Out of its love another grew.

“And many a dove for man's sake died,
Noted in heaven with none offence,
Save when the heart of the cruel took pride
In slaying the witness of innocence.

“When countless seasons had come and gone,
Come and gone as a happy dream,
One noon of summer I lingered upon
The eastward marge of a sacred stream.

“And lo, 'mid a crowd on the further side,
That stood in the stream or knelt on the sod,
I saw—though a veil of flesh did hide
The splendour of Godhead—the Son of God.

“And ev'n as I gazed, the azure above
Burst into glory that dimmed the sun;
And the Spirit of God in the form of a dove
I saw descend on the Holy One.

“I deemed that my task was over then;
‘'Tis the dawn,’ I said, ‘of the reign of love;
Henceforth my doves will be safe with men,
Since God hath hallowed the form of the dove.’

“Then I soared aloft, but again returned;
For I said in my heart, ‘I will not cease
From my care, till man from His lips hath learned
That the birds have a share in the Gospel of Peace.’

“And it chanced on a day in the soft springtide,
When birds were joyous and love was sweet,
I saw the Lord on a mountain side,

And with Him were twelve, who sat at His feet.

“And I heard Him say, ‘Not a sparrow doth fall
To the ground but your Father taketh note,’
Then all the air grew musical,
And song awoke in each warbling throat.

“For into bird-music the message passed,
And from choir to choir in melody ran;
And I said, ‘My mission is over at last.
Farewell, my doves. Ye are safe with man.’

“Weeping, yet gladsome, I soared aloft,
Being fain of the glories of other spheres,
Whose beckoning lustre had lured me oft
In starry midnights of bygone years.

“And on seas of ether and isles of light
Through ages of joy I floated or trod,
Till I chanced on an angel in upward flight,
Bearing an infant home to God.

“And a waft of earth from the flowers that lay
On the young dead breast came sweet and faint;
And again, dream-echoed from far away,
I heard in the woodlands the turtle's plaint.

“For memory woke at the flowers' sweet breath,
And my spirit yearned to the earth again,
And I cried, ‘Canst thou tell, oh angel of death,
How fare my doves at the hands of men?’

“ ‘Sad is their lot,’ the angel sighed;
‘For the pleasure of man they suffer pain;
And the heart of the cruel taketh pride
To slay thy doves and to number the slain.’

“I knew no more till the vapours of earth
Clung to my wings, and a pealing sound
Smote on mine ear, and voices of mirth;
And beneath me a dove fell dead to the ground.

“Leave me with God; for ye cannot know
How death takes shape in the human hand,
Nor the subtle devices that work for woe;
But the Lord will hear and will understand.

“And if, as I clove my unseen way
Between my doves and the deadly rain,
It was given unto me to become as they,
To share their wounds and to know their pain—

“Surely the rather will God give ear
To one who knoweth what He hath known;
Surely the rather will Jesus hear,
Who suffered, as I, for love of His own.

“Can it be that the great Lord doth not know
How Christ is needed on earth again?
Rise, lingering curtain! that I may show
The wounds of my doves, and may pray for men.”


* * * * *
Slowly the rainbow rose, parting in twain;
And, lo, in the midst of the throne of love
There stood a Lamb as it had been slain;
And over the throne there brooded a Dove.