Sir Lewis Morris: Verses about Happiness

MY soul is as a bird
Singing in fair weather,
Deep in shady woodlands through the evening's dewy calm ;
Every glossy feather
On her full throat stirred,
As she pours out, rapt, unconscious, all the sweetness of her psalm ;
Mounting high, and higher, higher,
Soaring now, now falling, dying ;
Now through silvery pauses sighing;
Throbbing now with joyous strife,
And rushing tides of love and life,
Till some ray of heavenly fire
Shot obliquely through the shade,
Pierces her ; and lo ! the strain
Of the music she has made
Fills her with a sudden pain.

Then she forgets to sing
Her former songs of gladness ;
Sitting mute in silence sweeter than the old forgotten lays ;
Till anon some note of sadness,
Long-drawn, languishing,
Faint at first, swells onward slowly to a subtler depth of praise,
As the low, wild, minor, broken
By the ghosts of gayer fancies,
Like a rippling stream advances,
Till the full tide grown too deep,
Whispers first, then falls asleep.
Then, as souls with no word spoken
Grow together, she, mute and still,
Thrills through with a secret voice,
Which the farthest heaven can fill,
And constrains her to rejoice.

And the passer-by who hears,
Not the burst of pleasure,
Swelling upward, sweet, spontaneous, to the portals of the sky,
But a chastened measure,
Low and full of tears ;
And anon the voiceless silence, when the last notes sink and die,
Deems some influence malign,
Checks the current of her song ;
For that none are happy long.
Nay ; but to the rapt soul come
Sounds that strike the singer dumb,
And the silence is Divine ;
For when heaven gives back the strain,
All its joyous tones are o'er ;
First the low sweet notes of pain,
Then, the singer sings no more.

OPEN, my soul, thy stately portals wide ;
Open full wide, and let thy King come in !
How shall he come ? In royal pomp and pride,
Ushered by braying trumpets' clamorous din ;
Clothed round with purple ; crowned with burning gold :
A kingly presence, glorious to behold ?

Nay ; for he is no mortal king, to come
With trumpet peals and crowds and garish state ;
But silent to the soul he makes his home,
He enters by some lowly postern gate !
And she, within her chambers far withdrawn,
Cries like the wakeful bird that greets the dawn.

It may be she is seated 'mid the throng,
Crowned with the flowers of life and youth and health ;
Thrilled through by breathing art or passionate song,
Or faint with hot pursuit of fame or wealth ;
Rapt by the glorious thoughts of saints or seers,
Or radiant with the blessed dew of tears.

And then the wicket swings without a sound,
And lo ! a ghostly presence, pale and gray,
Sad eyes which dwell not on the things around,
But gaze for ever on the Far-off Day!
Then a low voice, whispering, 'Thy King is come ;
Rejoice, be glad, for here he makes his home.'

Then rises she and hastens to the gate,
Her royal gate, and there she casts her down :
Prone at his feet bewails her low estate,
Yet prays him he will enter to his own !
Spurns from her all her robes of pride, and stands,
Knowing her shame, to do her Lord's commands,

Whom with a touch he fashions for her part;
Dowers with the precious gifts of bard or sage ;
The hand to fix the dreams of deathless art,
The imperial will, the patriot's noble rage:
Or fills with such fine affluence of love,
That she grows holy as the saints above.

Then open, O my soul ! thy portals wide,
Open, and let thy Lord and Ruler come ;
Open, if haply he may here abide,
And make within thee his eternal home.
Open thy gates, thy halls, thine inmost shrine,
Till all are flooded with the Light divine.

WHAT shall it profit a man
To have stood by the source of things,
To have spent the fair years of his youthful prime
In mystical questionings ;
To have scaled the lovely height,
While his brothers slept below ;
To have seen the vision bright
Which but few on earth may know,—
If when his task be done
He lives his life alone ?
If in the busy street
None come whom he may greet ?
If in his lonely room
With the night the shadows deepen into ghostly shapes of gloom ?

It may be his soul may say,
' I have gained me a splendid dower ;
I can look around on the toiling crowd,
With the pride of a conscious power.
I can hear the passer-by
Tell of all my world-wide fame ;
I have friends I shall not see
Who dwell fondly on my name.
If the sweet smile of wife
Light not my joyless life,
If to my silent home
No childish laughter come,
Shall I no solace find
In communion with the monarchs of the fair broad realm of mind ?'

But when sickness wears him, or age
Creeps on, and his soul doth yearn
For the tender hand and the soothing voice
That shall never more return
When the lessening throng of friends,
Not unkind, but each one set
Safe within white walls of home,
All the world without forget,—
Shall not old memories rise
'Twixt book and weary eyes,
Till knowledge come to seem
A profitless vague dream ?
Shall not he sometimes sigh
For the careless past unlearned, and the happy days gone by ?

Ah ! not to be happy alone,
Are men sent, or to be glad.
Oft-times the sweetest music is made
By the voices of the sad.
The thinker oft is bent
By a too-great load of thought ;
The discoverer's soul grows sick
With the secret vainly sought :
Lonely may be the home,
No breath of fame may come,
Yet through their lives doth shine
A purple light Divine,
And a nobler pain they prove
Than the bloom of lower pleasures, or the fleeting spell of love.

Two ships which meet upon the ocean waste,
And stay a little while, and interchange
Tidings from two strange lands, which lie beneath
Each its own heaven and particular stars,

And fain would tarry ; but the impatient surge
Calls, and a cold wind from the setting sun
Divides them, and they sadly drift apart,
And fade, and sink, and vanish, 'neath the verge—

One to the parching plains and seething seas
Smitten by the tyrannous Sun, where Mind alone
Withers amid the bounteous outerworld,
And prodigal Nature dwarfs and chains the man—

One to cold rains, rude winds, and hungry waves
Split on the frowning granite, niggard suns.
And snows and mists which starve the vine and palm,
But nourish to more glorious growth the man.

One to the scentless flowers and songless birds,
Swift storms and poison stings and ravening jaws :
One to spring violets and nightingales,
Sleek-coated kine and honest gray-eyed skies.

One to lie helpless on the stagnant sea,
Or sink in sleep beneath the hurricane :
One to speed on, white-winged, through summer airs,
Or sow the rocks with ruin—who shall tell ?

So with two souls which meet on life's broad deep,
And cling together but may not stay ; for Time
And Age and chills of Absence wear the links
Which bind them, and they part for evermore—

One to the tropic lands of fame and gold,
And feverish thirst and weariness of soul ;
One to long struggles and a wintry life,
Decked with one sweet white bloom of happy love.

For each, one fate, to live and die apart,
Save for some passing smile of kindred souls ;
Then drift away alone, on opposite tides,
To one dark harbour and invisible goal

'TIME flies too fast, too fast our life decays.'
Ah, faithless ! in the present lies our being ;
And not in lingering love for vanished days !

'Come, happy future, when my soul shall live.'
Ah, fool ! thy life is now, and not again ;
The future holds not joy nor pain to give !

' Live for what is : future and past are naught.'
Ah, blind ! a flash, and what shall be, has been.
Where, then, is that for which thou takest thought ?

Not in what has been, is, or is to be,
The wise soul lives, but in a wider time,
Which is not any, but contains the three !

HERE lay him down in peace to take his rest,
Who tired of singing ere the day was done.
A little time, a little, beneath the sun,
He tarried and gave forth his artless song;
The bird that sings with the dawn, sings not for long,
Only when dew is on the grass his breast
Thrills, but his voice is silent long ere noon.
So sang he once, but might not long sustain
The high pure note of youth, for soon, too soon !
He ceased to know the sweet creative pain
Made still one voice, amid the clamorous strife,
And proved no more the joys or pains of life.

And better so than that his voice should fail,
And sink to earth, and lose its heavenlier tone ;
Perchance, if he had stayed, the sad world's moan,
The long low discord of incessant wrong,
Had marred the perfect cadence of his song,
And made a grosser music to prevail.
But now it falls as pure upon the ear,
As sings the brown bird to the star of eve,
Or child's voice in grey minster quiring clear.
Rather then, give we thanks for him than grieve;
Thoughts of pure joys which but in memory live,
More joy than lower present joys can give.

For him, deep rest or high spontaneous strains ;
For us, fierce strife and low laborious song;
For him, truth's face shining out clear and strong ;
For us, half lights, thick clouds, and darkling days.
No longer walks his soul in mortal ways,
Nor thinks our thoughts, nor feels our joys or pains,
Nor doubts our doubts, nor any more pursues,
Knowing all things, the far-off searchless cause ;
Nor thrills with art, or nature's fairest hues,
Gazing on absolute beauty's inmost laws;
Or lies for ever sunk in dreamless sleep,
Nor recks of us ; and therefore 'tis we weep.

But surely if he sleep, some fair faint dream,
Some still small whisper from his ancient home,
Not joy, nor pain, but mixt of each shall come ;
Or if he wake, the thought of earthly clays
Shall add a tender sweetness to his praise ;
Tempering the unbroken joyance of his theme.
And by-and-by the time shall come when we,
Laden with all our lives, once more shall meet,
Like friends, who after infinite wastes of sea,
Look in each other's eyes ; and lo ! the sweet
Sad fount of memory to its depths is stirred,
And the past lives again, without a word.

Mourn not for him ! perchance he lends his voice
To swell the fulness of the eternal psalm ;
Or haply, wrapt in nature's holy calm,
As lurks the seed within the vital earth,
He quickens surely to a higher birth.
Mourn not for him ! but let your souls rejoice.
We know not what we shall be, but are sure
The spark once kindled by the Eternal breath,
Goes not out quite, but somewhere doth endure
In that strange life we blindly christen death.
Somewhere he is, though where we can' not tell ;
But wheresoe'er God hides him, it is well.

UNDER the picture gallery wall,
As a sea-leaf clings to a wave-worn rock,
Nor shrinks from the surging impetuous shock
Of the breakers which gather and whiten and fall
A child's form crouches, nor seems to heed
The ceaseless eddy and whirl of men :
Men and women with hearts that bleed,
Men and women of wealth and fame,
High in honour, or sunk in shame,
Pass on like phantoms, and pass again.
And he lies there like a weed.

A child's form, said I ; but looking again
It is only the form that is childish now,
For age has furrowed the low dull brow,
And marked the pale face with its lines of pain.
Yet but few years have fled, since I first passed by,
For a dwarf's life is short if you go by the sun,
And marked in worn features and lustreless eye
Some trace of youth's radiance, though faint and thin,
But now, oh, strange jest ! there's a beard to his chin.
And he lies there, grown old ere his youth is done,
With his poor limbs bent awry.

What a passer-by sees, is a monstrous head,
With a look in the eyes as of those who gaze
On some far-off sight with a dumb amaze ;
A face as pale as the sheeted dead,
A frail body propt on a padded crutch,
And lean long fingers, which flutter the keys
Of an old accordion, returning their touch
With some poor faint echoes of popular song,
Trivial at all times and obsolete long,
Psalm-tunes, and African melodies,
Not differing very much.

And there he sits nightly in heat and cold,
When the fountains fall soft on the stillness of June,
Or when the sharp East sings its own shrill tune,
Patiently playing and growing old.
The long year waxes and wanes, the great
Flash by in splendour from rout or ball,
Statesmen grown weary of long debate,
Hurry by homewards, and fling him alms ;
Pitiful women, touched by the psalms,
Bringing back innocence, stoop by the wall
Where he lies at Dives' gate.

What are his thoughts of, stranded there ?
While life ebbs and flows by, again and again,
Does the old sad Problem vex his poor brain ?
'Why is the world so pleasant and fair,
Why, am I only who did no wrong
Crippled and bent out of human form ?
Why are other men tall and strong ?
Surely if all men were made to rejoice,
Seeing that we come without will or choice,
It were better to crawl for a day like a worm,
Than to lie like this so long !

'The blind shuffles by with a tap of his staff,
The tired tramp plods to the workhouse ward,
But he carries his broad back as straight as a lord
And the blind man can hear his little ones laugh.
While I lie here like a weed on the sand,
With these crooked limbs, paining me night and day.
Would to Heaven, I were come to the promised land !
Of the sweet old faith which was preached for the poor,
Where none shall be weary or pained any more,
Nor change shall enter nor any decay,
And the stricken down shall stand ?'

And perhaps sometimes when the sky is clear,
And the stars show like lamps on the sweet summer night,
Some chance chord struck with a sudden delight,
Soars aloft with his soul, and brings Paradise near.
And then for even nature is sometimes kind
He lies stretched under palms with a harp of gold ;
Or is whirled on by coursers as fleet as the wind ;
And is no more crippled, nor weak nor bent ;
No more painful nor impotent ;
No more hungry, nor weary nor cold,—
But of perfect form and mind.

Or maybe his thoughts are of humbler cast,
For hunger and cold are real indeed ;
And he longs for the hour when his toil shall be past,
And he with sufficient for next day's need :
Some humble indulgence of food or fire,
Some music-hall ditty, or marvellous book,
Or whatever it be such poor souls desire ;
And with this little solace, for God would fain
Make even His measures of joy and pain,
He drones happily on in his quiet nook,
With hands that never tire.

Well, these random guesses must go for naught
Seeing it were surer and easier far
To weigh to an atom the faintest star,
Than to sound the dim depths of a brother's thought.
But whenever I hear those poor snatches of song,
And see him lie maimed in,tody and soul,
While I am straight and healthy and strong,
I seem to redden with a secret shame,
That we can thus differ who should be the same,
While I hear the World's thundering chariot-wheels roll
Unpitying along

ALL men are poets if they might but tell
The dim ineffable changes which the sight
Of natural beauty works on them : the charm
Of those first days of Spring, when life revives
And all the world is bloom : the whitefringed green
Ofsummer seas swirling around the base
Of overhanging cliffs ; the golden gleam
Seen from some breezy hill, where far and wide
The fields grow ripe for harvest ; or the storm
Smiting the leaden surf, or echoing
On nightly lakes and unsuspected hills,
Revealed in lurid light ; or first perceived,
High in mid-heaven, above the rosy clouds,
The everlasting snows.
And Art can move,
To higher minds, an influence as great
As Nature's self ; when the rapt gazer marks
The stainless mother folding arms divine
Around the Eternal Child, or pitying love
Nailed to the dreadful cross, or the white strength
Of happy heathen gods, or serpent coils
Binding the agonized limbs, till from their pain
Is born a thing of beauty for all time.

And more than Nature, more than Art can move
The awakened soul heroic soaring deeds ;
When the young champion falls in hopeless fight,
Striking for home ; or when, by truth constrained,
The martyr goes forth cheerful to his fate
The dungeon, or the torture, or, more hard,
The averted gaze of friends, the loss of love,
The loneliness of soul, which truth too oft
Gives to reward the faith which casts aside
All things for her ; or saintly lives obscure,
Spent in a sweet compassion, till they gain,
Living, some glow of heaven ; or passionate love,
Bathing our poor world in a mystic light,
Seen once, then lost for ever. These can stir
Life to its depths, till silence grows a load
Too hard to bear, and the rapt soul would fain
Speak with strange tongues which startle as they come,
Like the old saints who spake at Pentecost.

But we are dumb, we are dumb, and may not tell
What stirs within us, though the soul may throb
And tremble with its passion, though the heart
Dissolve in weeping : dumb. Nature may spread
Sublimest sights of beauty ; Art inspire
High thoughts and pure of God -like sacrifice ;
Yet no word comes. Heroic daring deeds
Thrill us, yet no word comes ; we are dumb, we are dumb,
Save that from finer souls at times may rise,
Once in an age, faint inarticulate sounds,
Low halting tones of wonder, such as come
From children looking on the stars, but still
With power to open to the listening ear
The Fair Divine Unknown, and to unseal
Heaven's inner gates before us evermore.

Ah, few and far between ! The earth grows green,
Art's glorious message speaks from year to year,
Great deeds and high are done from day to day,
But the voice comes not which has power to wake
The sleeping soul within, and animate
The beauty which informs them, lending speech
To what before was dumb. They come, they go,
Those sweet impressions spent on separate souls,
Like raindrops on the endless oceanplains,
Lost as they fall. The world rolls on ; lives spring,
Blossom, and fade ; the play of life is played
More vivid than of old a wider stage,
With more consummate actors ; yet the dull,
Cold deeps of sullen silence swallow up
The strain, and it is lost. But if we might
Paint all things as they are, find voice to speak
The thoughts now mute within us, let the soul
Trace on its sensitive surface vividly,
As does the sun our features, all the play
Of passion, all the changeful tides of thought,
The mystery, the beauty, the delight,
The fear, the horror, of our lives, our being
Would blaze up heavenward in a sudden flame,
Spend itself, and be lost.
Wherefore 'tis well
This narrow boundary that hedges in
The strong and weak alike. Thought could not live,
Nor speech, in that pure aether which girds round
Life's central dwelling-place. Only the dull
And grosser atmosphere of earth it is
Which vibrates to the sweet birds' song, and brings
Heaven to the wondering ear. Only the stress,
The pain, the hope, the longing, the constraint
Of limited faculties circling round and round
The grim circumference, and finding naught
Of outlet to the dread unknown beyond,
Can lend the poet voice. Only the weight,
The dulness of our senses, which makes dumb
And hushes half the finer utterance,
Makes possible the song, and modulates
The too exalted music, that it falls
So soft upon the listening soul, that life,
Not withered by the awful harmony, -
Nor drunk with too much sweetness,' nor struck blind
By the too vivid presence of the
Unknown,
Fulfils its round of duty elevated,
Not slain by too much splendour comforted,
Not thunder-smitten soothed, not laid asleep
And ever, through the devious maze of being,
Fares in slow narrowing cycles to the end.

SAID one,' Tis Use must lend
The clue our thoughts to bend
To the true end.'

Then I. ' But can your thought
Reach thus for ages sought,
The eternal 'Ought?' '

' Would not the martyr spurn
The truth you teach, to learn,
Rot, rather, burn ?'

' Were not death's self more sweet
Than to live incomplete
A life effete?'

Then he. ' But who shall hold
They grasped not over bold
Their faith of old,'

''Hoarding a random creed
For which they bore to bleed,
Not proved indeed ?'

' For who the truth shall seize
Grasps it by slow degrees,
Not snatched, as these.'

'And who would save his kind
Must spend, the clue to find,
Not heart, but mind.'

Then I. ' But mind alone,
Is dead as wood or stone,
Stirs naught and none.'

'And who with prying eyes
Will motive analyze,
For him it dies.'

'And all his hours remain
A barren, endless plain,
Not joy nor pain ;'

' A tideless, windless sea,
A blank eternity,
Still doomed to be.'

Then he. ' The Use we teach
All forms of being can reach,
Saves all by each.'

'No hasty glance or blind,
To passing goods confined,
Changeful as wind ;'

'But with a steadfast view,
Piercing the boundless blue
Up to the True.'

'Contented to efface
Self, if from out its place
Blossoms the race ;'

' If from lives crushed and wrecked,
A perfected effect,
Man stands erect.'

'To whom all pleasures show
An aspect mean and low
Beside to know.'

'Holding all other thought
Than which for this is sought
A thing of naught.'

' This seeking, nothing less,
What broader happiness
Most lives may bless ?'

Then I. 'If the desire
To which your thoughts aspire
Blazed forth afire ;'

' If all the task were done,
All stubborn contests won
Beneath the sun ;'

'If hope came not to cheer,
Nor bracing chill of fear,
Sweet sigh nor tear ;'

' But all the race should sleep
In a broad calm, too deep
For one to weep.'

'And o'er all lands should reign
A dull content inane,
Worse far than pain ;'

'If, all its griefs forgot,
Slowly the race should rot,
Fade and be not ;'

' Would not the thought oppress
The dream that once could bless,
With such distress,'

'That, from the too great strain,
Life withered, heart and brain,
Would rise in vain?'

Then he. ' The outcome this
Of all philosophies,
'Who seeks shall miss.''

' Who toil aright, for those
Life's pathway, ere it close,
Is as the rose.'

' The spires of wisdom stand,
Piled by the unconscious hand,
From grains of sand.'

'And pleasure comes unsought,
To those who take but thought
For that, they ought ;'

'A bloom, a perfume rare,
A deep-hid jewel fair
For those who dare.'

'So who the race aright
Loveth, a clearer sight
Shall yet requite ;'

'And, since he seeks it less,
An unsought happiness
His toil shall bless.'

Then I. ' 'Twere strange indeed
Should not our longing need
A clearer creed.'

'If only this were blest,
To ponder well how best
To serve the rest.'

'Since grows ; 'tis understood,
The happy multitude,
From each man's good,'

' From general sacrifice,
How should for each arise,
Content for sighs?'

' Or shall we deem it true
That who the road pursue
To gain the True,'

'May not the summit gain
By paths direct and plain
To heart and brain,'

' But with averted mind,
And sedulously blind,
The end must find ?'

'Is truth a masker, then,
Rejoiced to mock the ken
Of toiling men ?'

'Now tricked as Use, now Right,.
But always in despite
Of our poor sight.'

' Doth it not rather seem
We live, whate'er we deem,
As in a dream,'

'Acting, but acting still
The dictates to fulfil
Of a sure Will,'

'Seeing in Use and Right,
Twin rays indefinite
Of a great Light,'

' A mystic Sun and clear,
Which through mind's atmosphere
Can scarce appear,'

'But which not less we know ;
In all fair flowers that grow,
Loud storms that blow,'

' In noble thought and word,
In aspirations heard,
When hearts are stirred,'

' In every breathing breath,
Life that awakeneth,
Life that is death,'

'Whether serene it shine
Or clouds our view confine,
Wondrous, Divine?'

Then he. ' Shall this excuse
Him who a dream should choose
Rather than Use,'

' That he prefer to hold
Some dark abstraction old,
Remote and cold,'

' Some thin ghost, fancy-dressed,
Whereby men's souls oppressed,
Forfeit the best,'

' And for a dream neglect
What splendours of effect
Their lives had decked ?'

Then I. 'Though mind and brain
Wither and are in vain,
And thought a pain ;'

'Though sorrow, like a thief,
Follow to rob belief,
And faith be grief;'

'Though my obedience show
No fruit I here may know
Save utter woe ;'

'' Though health and strength decay ;
Yea, though the Truth shall slay,
I will obey.'

DEAR heart ! what a little time it is since Francis and I used to walk
From church in the still June evenings together, busy with loving talk ;
And now he is gone, far away over seas, to some strange foreign country, and I
Shall never rise from my bed any more, till the day when I come to die.

I tried not to think of him during the prayers; but when his dear voice I heard,
I failed to take part in the hymn ; for my heart fluttered up to my throat like a bird,
And scarcely a word of the sermon I caught. I doubt 'twas a grievous sin;
But 'twas only one poor little hour in the week that I had to be happy in.

When the blessing was given, and we left the dim aisles for the light of the evening star ;
Though I durst not lift up my eyes from the ground, yet I knew that he was not far.
And I hurried on, though I fain would have stayed, till I heard his footstep draw near ;
And love rising up in my breast like a flame, cast out every shadow of fear.

Ah me ! 'twas a pleasant pathway home, a pleasant pathway and sweet ;
Ankle deep through the purple clover ; breast high 'mid the blossoming wheat ;
I can hear the landrails prate through the dew, and the night-jars' tremulous thrill,
And the nightingale pouring her passionate song from the hawthorn under the hill.

One day, when we came to the wicket gate, 'neath the elms, where we used to part,
His voice began to falter and break as he told me I had his heart.
And I whispered back that mine was his : we knew what we felt long ago ;
Six weeks are as long as a lifetime almost, when you love each other so.

So we put up the banns, and were man and wife, in the sweet fading time of the year,
And till Christmas was over and past, I knew no shadow of sorrow or fear.
It seems like a dream already, alas ! a sweet dream vanished and gone,
So hurried and brief while passing away, so long to look back upon.

I had only had him three little months, and the world lay frozen and dead,
When the summons came, which we feared and hoped, and he sailed over seas for our bread.
Ah, well ! it is fine to be wealthy and grand, and never to need to part ;
But 'tis better far to love and be poor than be rich with an empty heart.

Though I thought 'twould have killed me to lose him at first, yet was he not going for me ?
So I hid deep down in my breast all the grief, which I knew it would pain him to see.
He'd surely be back by the autumn, he said ; and since his last passionate kiss
He has scarcely been out of my thoughts, day or night, for a moment, from that day to this.

When I wrote to him how I thought it would be, and he answered so full of love,
Ah ! there was not an angel happier than I, in all the white chorus above.
And I seemed to be lonely no longer, the days and the weeks passed so swiftly away;
And the March winds died, and the sweet April showers gave place to the blossoms of May.

And then came the sad summer eve, when I sat with the little frock in the sun,
And Patience ran in with the news of the ship Ah, veil ! may His will be done.
They said that all hands were lost, and I swooned away on the floor like a stone ;
And another life came, ere I knew he was safe, and my own was over and gone.

* * * * * * *

And now I lie helpless here, and shall never rise up again ;
I grow weaker and weaker, day by day, till my weakness itself is a pain.
Every morning the slow dawn creeps ; every evening I see from my bed
The orange-gold fade into lifeless gray, and the old evening star overhead.

Sometimes by the twilight dim, or the awful birth of the day,
As I lie, very still, not asleep nor awake, my soul seems to flutter away ;
And I float far beyond the stars, till I thrill with a rapturous pain,
And the feeble touch of a tiny hand recalls me to life again.

And the doctor says she will live. Ah ! 'tis hard to leave her alone,
And to think she will never know, in the world, the love of the mother who's gone.
They will tell her of me, by-and-by, and perhaps she will shed me a tear ;
But if I should stoop to her bed in the night, she would start with a horrible fear.

She will grow into girlhood, I trust, and will bask in the light of love,
And I, if I gain to see her at all, shall only look on from above.
I shall see her and cannot aid, though she fall into evil and woe.
Ah, how can the angels find heart to rejoice, when they think of their dear ones below ?

And Francis, he too will forget me, and go on the journey of life ;
And I hope, though I dare not think of it yet, will take him another wife
It will hardly be Patience, I think, though she liked him in days gone by.
Was that why she came ? But what thoughts are these for one who is soon to die?

I hope he will come ere I go, though I feel no longer the thirst
For the sound of his voice and the light of his eye, which I used to feel at first.
!Tis not that I care for him less, but death dries, with a finger of fire,
The tender springs of innocent love and the torrents of strong desire.

And I know we shall meet again. I have done many things that are wrong,
But surely the Lord of Life and of Love cannot bear to be angry long.
I am only a girl of eighteen, and have had no teacher but love ;
And, it may be, the sorrow and pain I have known will be counted for tna above.

For I doubt if the minister knows all the depths of the goodness of God,
When he says, He is jealous of earthly love, and bids me bow down 'neath the rod.
He is learned and wise, I know, but somehow to dying eyes
God opens the secret doors of the shrine that are closed to the learned and wise.

So now I am ready to go, for I know He will do what is best,
Though He call me away while the sun is on high, like a child sent early to rest.
I should like him to see her first, though the yearning is over and past :
But what is that footstep upon the stair ? Oh, my darling at last, at last!

ABOVE the busy Norman town,
The high precipitous sea-cliffs rise,
And from their summit looking down
The twin-lights shine with lustrous eyes ;
Far out upon the fields of foam,
The first to greet the wanderer home.

Man here has known at last to tame
Nature's wild forces to his will ;
Those are the lightning's fires which flame,
From yon high towers with ray so still :
And knowledge, piercing through the night
Of time, has summoned forth the light.

And there, hard by the lighthouse door,
The earthly set by the divine ;
At a stone's cast, or scarcely more,
Rises a little pagan shrine,
Where the rough seamen come to pray,
And wives, for dear ones far away.

There, on a starry orb, there stands
A heavenly goddess, proud and fair ;
No infant holds she in her hands
Which must a queenly sceptre bear.
Nay ; wonder not, for this is she
Who rules the fury of the sea.

Star of the sea, they call her, yet
Liker to Here doth she show,
Than Aphrodite, rising wet
From the white waves, with limbs aglow.
Calmer she seems, more pure and sweet,
To the poor kneelers at her feet.

Before her still the vestal fires
Burn unextinguished day and night ;
And the sweet frankincense expires
And fair flowers blow, and gems are bright :
For a great power in heaven is she,
This star and goddess of the sea.

Around the temple, everywhere,
Rude tablets hung, attest her might ;
Here the fierce surge she smooths, and there
Darts downward on a bar of light ;
To quench the blazing ship, or save
The shipwrecked from the hungry wave.

And sea-gifts round the shrine are laid,
Poor offerings, costlier far than gold :
Such as the earlier heathen made,
To the twin Deities of old,
Toy ships, shells, coral, glittering spar,
Brought here by grateful hands from far.

A very present help indeed,
This goddess is to whom they bow ;
We seek Thy face with hearts that bleed,
And straining eyes, dread Lord ! but Thou
Hidest Thyself so far away,
Our thoughts scarce reach Thee as we pray.

But is this she, whom the still voice
Of angels greeted in the night ;
Bidding the poor maid's heart rejoice,
With visions hid from wiser sight :
This heathen nymph, this tinselled queen,
First of all mothers who have been ?

Gross hearts and purblind eyes, to make .
An idol of a soul so sweet !
Could you no meaner essence take,
No brazen image with clay feet ;
No saint from out the crowd of lies,
False signs and shameful prodigies ?

For this one bears too great a name,
Above all other women blest ;
The blessed mother, all her fame
Is His who nestled to her breast :
They do but dull her glory down,
These childless arms, this earthly crown.

Poor peasant mother ! scarce a word
Thou spak'st, the long-drawn years retain ;
Only thy womb once bare the Lord ;
Only thou knew'st the joy, the pain,
The high hope seeming quenched in blood
That marked thy awful motherhood.

No trace of all thy life remains,
From His first childhood to the cross ;
A life of little joys and pains,
Of humble gain and trivial loss :
Contented if the ewes should bear
Twin lambs, or wheat were full in ear.

Or if sometimes the memory
Of that dread message of the night
Troubled thy soul, there came to thee
New precious duties ; till the flight,
The desert sands, the kneeling kings,
Showed but as half-forgotten things.

Or sometimes, may be, pondering deep
On miracles of word and deed,
Vague doubts across thy soul would creep,
Still faithful to the older creed :
Could this thy son indeed be He,
This child who prattled at thy knee ?

And of thy after-life, thy age,
Thy death, no record ; not a line
On all the fair historic page
To mark the life these hold divine :
Only some vague tradition, faint
As the sick story of a saint.

But thou no longer art to-day .
The sweet maid-mother, fair and pure;
Vast time-worn reverend temples gray,
Throne thee in majesty obscure ;
And long aisles stretch in minsters high,
'Twixt thee, fair peasant, and the sky.

They seek to honour thee, who art
Beyond all else a mother indeed ;
With hateful vows that blight the heart,
With childless lives, and souls that bleed :
As if their dull hymns' barren strain
Could fill a mother with aught but pain !

To the gross earth they bind thee down
With coils of fable, chain on chain ;
From plague or war to save the town ;
To give, or hold ; the sun, or rain ;
To whirl through air a favourite shrine,
These are thy functions, and divine.

And see, in long procession rise
The fair Madonnas of all time ;
They gaze from sweet maternal eyes,
The dreams of every Christian clime :
Brown girls and icy queens, the breast
And childish lips proclaim them blest.

Till as the gradual legend grew,
Born without stain, and scorning death;
Heavenward thou soarest through the blue,
While saints and seers aspire beneath:
And fancy-nurtured cam'st to be
Queen over sky and earth and sea.

Oh, sin ! oh, shame ! oh, folly ! Rise;
Poor heathen, think to what you bow ;
Consider, beyond God's equal skies,
What pains that faithful soul must know,—
She a poor peasant on the throne
Raised for the Lord of Life, alone.

O sweet ! O heart of hearts ! O pure
Above all purest maids of earth !
O simple child, who didst endure
The burden of that awful birth :
Heart, that the keenest sword didst know,
Soul bowed by alien loads of woe !

Sweet soul ! have pity ; intercede,
Oh mother of mothers, pure and meek ;
They know no evil, rise and plead
For these poor wandering souls and weak ;
Tear off those pagan rags, and lead
Their worship where 'tis due indeed.

For wheresoever there is home,
And mothers yearn with sacred love,
There, since from Heaven itself they come,
Are symbols of the life above :
Again the sweet maid-mother mild,
Again the fair Eternal child.

SOME men there be who can descry
No charm in earth or sea or sky,
Poor painful bigot souls, to whom
All sights and sounds recall the tomb,
And some who do not fear to use
God's world for tavern or for stews.
Some think it wisdom to despoil
Their years for gold and troublous toil ;
While others with cold dreams of art
Would feed the hunger of the heart,
And dilettanti dare to stand,
Eternities on either hand !

But with no one of these shall I
Make choice to live my life or die,—
Rather let me elect to give
What span of life is mine to live,
To honest labour, daily sought,
Crowned with the meed of patient thought ;
To precious friends for ages dead,
But loved where'er their words are read ;
To others living with us still,
Who sway the nation's mind and will
By eloquent pen or burning word,
Where hearts 'are fired and souls are stirred.
So thro' the tranquil evenings long,
Let us awake our souls with song,
Such song as comes where no words come,
And is most mighty when most dumb.
Then soar awhile on wings of art ;
Not that which chokes the vulgar mart,
But subtle hints and fancies fine,
When least completed most divine,
Sun-copies of some perfect thought,
Thro' bronze or canvas fitly wrought,
Known when in youth 'twas ours to see
Thy treasure-houses, Italy !
Then turn from these to grave debate
What change of laws befits the State,
By what wise schemes and precepts best
To raise the humble and oppressed,
And slay the twin reproach of Time,
The fiends of Ignorance and Crime.

Or what if I might come to fill
A calmer part, and dearer still,
With one attempered soul to share
The joys and ills 'tis ours to bear ;
To grow together, heart with heart,
Into a whole where each is part ;
To blend together, soul with soul,
Neither a part, but each the whole ;
With strange creative thrills to teach
The dawning mind, the growing speech,
To bind around me precious bands
Of loving hearts and childish hands,
And lose the stains of time and sense
In those clear deeps of innocence ?

So if kind fate should grant at length,
Ere frame and brain have lost their strength,
In my own country homestead dear,
To spend a portion of the year ;
What joys I'll prove if modest wealth
Should come with still unbroken health !
There, sheltered from the ruder wind,
Thro' the thick woods we'll range, to find
The spring's first flower, the autumn's fruit,
Strange fungus or misshapen root.
Mark where the wood-quist or the thrush
Builds on tall pine or hazel bush ;
See the brave bird with speckled breast
Brood fearless on the teeming nest,
And bid the little hands refrain
From every act of wrong and pain.
Observe the gossip conies sit
By their own doors, the white owl flit
Thro' the dim fields, while I enjoy
The wondering talk of girl or boy.
Sweet souls, which at life's portal stand,
And all within, a wonderland
Oh, treasure of a guileless love,
Fit prelude of the joys above !

There, when the swift week nears its end,
To greet the welcome Sunday friend,
Through the still fields we'll wend our way,
To meet the guest at close of day.
And then, when little eyes in vain
Long time have sought the coming train,
A gradual distant sound, which fills
The bosom of the folded hills,
Till with white steam or ruddy light
The wayworn convoy leaps to sight,
Then stops and sets the traveller down,
Bringing the smoke and news of town.
And then the happy hours to come,
The walk or ride which leads us home,
Past the tall woods through which 'twould seem
Home's white walls hospitablygleam,
The well-served meal, the neighbour guest,
The rosy darlings curled and dressed ;
And, when the house grows silent, then
The lengthened talk on books and men ;
And on the Sunday morning still,
The pleasant stroll by wood-crowned hill
To church, wherein my eyes grow dim
Hearing my children chant the hymn ;
And seeing in their earnest look
Something of innocent icbuke,
I lose the old doubt's endless pain,
And am a little child again.

If fate should grant me such a home,
So sweet the tranquil clays would come,
I should not need, I trust, to sink
My weariness in lust or drink.
Scant pleasure should I think to gain
From endless scenes of death and pain ;
'Twould little profit me to slay
A thousand innocents a day ;
I should not much delight to tear
With wolfish clogs the shrieking hare ;
With horse and hound to track to death
A helpless wretch that gasps for breath ;
To make the fair bird check its wing,
And drop, a dying, shapeless thing ;
To leave the joy of all the wood
A mangled heap of fur and blood,
Or else escaping, but in vain,
To pine, a shattered wretch, in pain ;
Teeming, perhaps, or doomed to see
Its young brood starve in misery ;
With neither risk nor labour, still
To live for nothing but to kill
I dare not ! If perplexed I am
Between the tiger and the lamb ;
If fate ordain that these shall give
Their poor brief lives that I may live :
Whate'er the law that bids them die,
Others shall butcher them, not I,
Not such my work. Surely the Lord,
Who made the devils by a word,
Not men, but those who'd wield them well
Gave these sad tortures of his Hell.

Ah ! fool and blind, to wander so ;
Who hast lived long enough to know
With what insane confusions teem
The mazes of our waking dream,—
The dullard surfeited with gold
His bloated coffers fail to hold,
While the keen mind and generous brain
From penury aspire in vain ;
Love's choicest treasures flung away
On some vile lump of coarsest clay ;
Pure girlhood chained to wretches foul,
Tainted in body as in soul ;
The precious love of wife or child
Not for the loving heart and mild,
But for the sullen churl, who ne'er
Knew any rule but that of fear ;
Fame, like Titania, stooping down
To set on asses' ears a crown ;
The shallow dunce, the fluent fool,
The butt and laughter of the school,
By fortune's strange caprice grown great,
A light of forum or debate ;
The carnal lump devoid of grace,
With each bad passion in his face,
A saintly idol, round whose knees
Crowd throngs of burning devotees.

Great heaven ! how strange the tangle is,
What old perplexity is this ?
The very words of my complaint,
What else are they than echoes faint
Of the full fire, the passionate scorn,
Of high-souled singers and forlorn,
Who, in our younger England, knew
No care for aught but what was true,
But loved to lash with bitter hate
The shameless vices of the great ;
Who bade, in far-off days of Rome,
In verse their indignation come ;
Who, when we learn the secrets hid
Beneath the eldest Pyramid,
Or in those dim days further still,
Whose nameless ruin builds the hill,
Push back our search where'er we can,
Till first the ape became the man,
Will in rude satire bid us find
The earliest victories of mind ?
Strong souls, rebellious with their lot,
Who longed for right and found it not ;
Too strong to take things as they seem,
Too weak to comprehend the scheme,
Too deeply fired with honest trust
To dream that God might be unjust ;
Yet, seeing how unequal show
His providences here below,
By paradoxes girt about,
Grew thro' excess of faith to doubt.
Oh, faithful souls, who love the true,
Tho' all be false, yet will not you ;
Tho' wrong shall overcome the right,
Still it is hateful in your sight ;
Tho' sorely tempted, you, and tried,
The truth stands always at your side ;
Tho' falsehood wear her blandest smile,
You only she shall ne'er beguile ;
For you, 'mid spectral sights and shows,
Life blushes with a hidden rose ;
Thro' the loud din of lower things
You hear the sweep of angel wings,
And with a holy scorn possest,
Wait till these clamours sink to rest.

COME, friend, let us forget
The turmoil of the world a little while,
For now the soft skies smile,
With dew the flowers are wet.
Let us away awhile
With fierce unrest and carking thoughts of care,
And breathe a little while the jocund air,
And sing the joyous measures sung
By blither singers, when the world was young.

For still the world is young, for still the spring
Renews itself, and still the lengthening hours
Bring back the month of flowers ;
The leaves are green to-day as those of old,
For Chaucer and for Shakspeare ; still the gold
Of August gilds the rippling waves of wheat;
Young maids are fair and sweet
As when they frolicked gay, with flashing feet,
Round the old May-pole. All young things rejoice.
No sorrow dulls the blackbird's mellow voice,
Thro' the clear summer dawns or twilights long.
With aspect not more dim
Thro' space the planets swim
Than of old time o'er the Chaldean plain.
We only, we alone,
Let jarring discords mar our song.
And find our music take a lower tone.
We only with dim eyes
And laboured vision feebly strain,
And flout the undying splendours of the skies.

Oh, see how glorious show,
On this fair morn in May, the clear-cut hills,
The dewy lawns, the hawthorn's white,
Argent on fields of gold ; the growing light
Pure as when first on the young earth
The faint warm sunlight came to birth ;
There is a nameless air
Of sweet renewal over all which fills
The earth and sky with life, and everywhere
Before the new-born sun begins to glow,
The birds awake which slumhered all night long,
And with a gush of song,
First doubting of their strain, then full and wide
Raise their fresh hymns thro' all the country side;
Already, above the dewy clover,
The soaring lark begins to hover
Over his mate's low nest ;
And soon, from childhood's early rest
In hall and cottage, to the casement rise
The little ones with their fresh opened eyes,
And gaze on the old Earth, which still grows new,
And see the tranquil heaven's unclouded blue,
And, since as yet no sight nor sound of toil
The fair spread, peaceful picture comes to soil,
Look with their young and steadfast gaze
Fixed in such artless sweet amaze
As Adam knew, when first on either hand
He saw the virgin landscapes of the morning land.

Oh, youth, dawn, springtide, triune miracle,
Renewing life in earth, and sky, and man,
By what eternal plan
Dost thou revive again and yet again ?
There is no morn that breaks,
No bud that bursts, no life that comes to birth,
But the rapt fancy takes,
Far from the duller plains of mind and earth,
Up to the source and origin of things,
Where, poised on brooding wings,
It seems to hover o'er the immense inane,
And see the suns, like feeble rings of light,
Orb from the gray, and all the youngling globe
A coil of vapour circling like a dream,
Then fixed compact for ever ; the first beam
Strike on the dark and undivided sea,
And wake the deeps with life. Oh, mystery
That still dost baffle thought,
Though by all sages sought,
And yet art daily done
With each returning sun,
With every dawn which reddens in the skies,
With every opening of awakened eyes !

How shall any dare to hold
That the fair world growing old,
Hath spent in vanished time
The glories of its prime ?
Beautiful were the days indeed
Of the Pagan's simple creed,
When all of life was made for girl and boy,
And all religion was but to enjoy.
The fair chivalric dream
To some may glorious seem,
When from the sleeping centuries,
Awakened Europe seemed to rise ;
It may be that we cannot know,
In these ripe years, the glory and the glow
Of those young hours of time, and careless days,
Borne down too much by knowledge, and opprest,
To halt a little for the needed rest,
And yield ourselves awhile to joy and praise ;
Yet every year doth bring
With each recurrence of the genial hour
The infancy of spring,
Crowned with unfolding leaf and bursting flower,
And still to every home
Fresh childish voices come,
And eyes that opened last in Paradise,
And with each rosy dawn
Are night and death withdrawn ;
Another world rises for other eyes ;
Again begins the joy, the stress, the strife,
Ancient as time itself, and wide as life.

We are the ancients of the world indeed ;
No more the simple creed,
When every hill and stream and grove
Was filled with shy divinities of love,
Allures us, serving as our King
A Lord of grief and suffering.
Too much our wisdom burdens to permit
The fair, thin visions of the past, to flit
From shade to shade, or float from hill to hill.
We are so compassed round by ill,
That all the music of our lives is dumb,
Amid the turbulent waves of sound that rise,
The discord born of doubts, and tears, and sighs,
Which daily to the listening ear do come ;
Nay, oft, confounded by the incessant noise
Of vast world-engines, grinding law on law,
We lose the godhead that our fathers saw,
And all our higher joys,
And bear to plod on daily, deaf and blind,
To a dark goal we dare not hope to find.

But grows the world then old ?
Nay, all things that are born of time
Spring upwards, and expand from youth to prime,
Ripen from flower to fruit,
From song-tide till the days are mute,
Green blade to ear of gold.
But not the less through the eternal round
The sleep of winter wakes in days of spring,
And not the less the bare and frozen ground
Grows blithe with blooms that burst and birds that sing.
Nature is deathless ; herb and tree,
Through time that has been and shall be,
Change not, although the outward form
Seem now the columned palm
Nourished in zones of calm,
And now the gnarled oak that defies the storm.
The cedar's thousand summers are no more
To her than are the fleeting petals gay
Which the young spring, ere March is o'er,
Scarce offered, takes away.
Eternal arc her works. Unchanging she,
Alike in short-lived flower and everchanging sea.

We, too, are deathless ; we,
Eternal as the Earth,
We cannot cease to be
While springtide comes or birth.
If our being cease to hold
Reflected lights divine
On budding lives, with every morn they shine
With unabated gold.
Though lost it may be to our mortal sight,
It cannot be that any perish quite
Only the baser part forgets to be.
And if within the hidden Treasury
Of the great Ruler we awhile should rest,
To issue with a higher stamp imprest,
With all our baser alloy purged and spent,
Were we not thus content?

Our thoughts too mighty are
To be within our span of years confined,
Too deep and wide and far,
The hopes, the fears, that crowd the labouring mind,
The sorrows that oppress
The sanctities that bless,
Are vaster than this petty stage of things.
The soaring fancy mounts on careless wings
Beyond the glimmer of the furthest star.
The nightly watcher who with patient eye
Scans the illumined sky,
Knows when the outward rushing fire shall turn,
And in far ages hence shall brightly burn
For eyes to-day undreamt of. The clear voice
From Greece or Israel thro' the centuries heard
Still bids us tremble or rejoice,
Stronger than living look or word ;
The love of home or race,
Which doth transfigure us, and seems to bring
On every heaven-lit face
Some shadow of the glory of our King,
Fades not on earth, nor with our years doth end ;
Nay, even earth's poor physical powers transcend
The narrow bounds of space and time,
The swift thought by some mystic sympathy
Speeding through desert sand, and storm-tost sea.
And shall we hold the range of mind
Is to our little lives confined ;
That the pure heart in some blest sphere above,
Loves not which here was set on fire of love ;
The clear eye scans not still, which here could scan
The confines of the Universal plan ;
The seer nor speaks nor thinks his thoughts sublime,
And all of Homer is a speck of lime ?

Nay, friend, let us forget
Our haunting doubts and fears a little while,
Again our springs shall smile ;
We shall not perish yet.
If God so guide our fate,
The nobler portions of ourselves shall last
Till all the lower rounds of life be past,
And we, regenerate.
We too again shall rise,
The same and not the same,
As daily rise upon the orient skies
New dawns with wheels of flame.
So, if it worthy prove,
Our being, self-perfected, shall upward move
To higher essence, and still higher grown,
Not sweeping idle harps before a throne,
Nor spending praise where is no need of praise,
But through unnumbered lives and ages come
From pure laborious days,
To an eternal home,
Where spring is not, nor birth, nor any dawn,
But life's full noontide never is withdrawn.