The Door Of Humility poem – Alfred Austin

ENGLAND

We lead the blind by voice and hand,

And not by light they cannot see;

We are not framed to understand

The How and Why of such as He;

But natured only to rejoice

At every sound or sign of hope,

And, guided by the still small voice,

In patience through the darkness grope;

Until our finer sense expands,

And we exchange for holier sight

The earthly help of voice and hands,

And in His light behold the Light.

I

Let there be Light! The self-same Power

That out of formless dark and void

Endued with life’s mysterious dower

Planet, and star, and asteroid;

That moved upon the waters’ face,

And, breathing on them His intent,

Divided, and assigned their place

To, ocean, air, and firmament;

That bade the land appear, and bring

Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower,

Cattle that graze, and birds that sing,

Ordained the sunshine and the shower;

That, moulding man and woman, breathed

In them an active soul at birth

In His own image, and bequeathed

To them dominion over Earth;

That, by whatever is, decreed

His Will and Word shall be obeyed,

From loftiest star to lowliest seed;-

The worm and me He also made.

And when, for nuptials of the Spring

With Summer, on the vestal thorn

The bridal veil hung flowering,

A cry was heard, and I was born.

II

To be by blood and long descent

A member of a mighty State,

Whose greatness, sea-girt, but unpent

By ocean, makes the world more great;

That, ranging limitless, hath won

A Rule more wide than that of Rome,

And, journeying onward with the sun,

In every zone hath found a home;

That, keeping old traditions fast,

Still hails the things that are to be,

And, firmly rooted in the Past,

On Law hath grafted Liberty;-

That is a birthright nobler far

Than princely claim or Right Divine

From far-off rapine, wanton war,

And I could feel this birthright mine.

And not the lowliest hand that drives

Or share or loom, if so it be

Of British strain, but thence derives

A patent of nobility.

III

The guiding of the infant years

Onward to good, away from guile,

A mother’s humanising tears,

A father’s philosophic smile;

Refining beauty, gentle ways,

The admonitions of the wise,

The love that watches, helps, and prays,

And pities, but doth ne’er despise;

An ancient Faith, abiding hope,

The charity that suffers long,

But flames with sacred zeal to cope

With man’s injustice, nature’s wrong;

Melodious leisure, learnëd shelf,

Discourse of earnest, temperate mind,

The playful wit that of itself

Flashes, but leaves no wound behind;

The knowledge gleaned from Greece and Rome,

From studious Teuton, sprightly Gaul,

The lettered page, the mellow tome,

And poets’ wisdom more than all;-

These, when no lips severe upbraid,

But counsel rather than control,

In budding boyhood lend their aid

To sensibility of soul.

IV

But, more than mentor, mother, sire,

Can lend to shape the future man

With help of learning or of lyre,

Of ancient rule, or modern plan,

Is that which with our breath we bring

Into the world, we know not whence,

That needs nor care nor fostering,

Because an instinct and a sense.

And days and years are all forgot

When Nature’s aspect, growth, and grace,

And veering moods, to me were not

The features of the Loved One’s face.

The cloud whose shadow skims the lake,

The shimmering haze of summer noon,

The voice of April in the brake,

The silence of the mounting moon,

Swaying of bracken on the hill,

The murmur of the vagrant stream,

These motions of some unseen Will,

These babblings of some heavenly dream,

Seemed tokens of divine desire

To hold discourse with me, and so

To touch my lips with hallowed fire,

And tell me things I ought to know.

I gazed and listened, all intent,

As to the face and voice of Fate,

But what they said, or what they meant,

I could surmise not, nor translate.

They did but lure me to unrest,

Unanswered questioning, longings vain,

As when one scans some palimpsest

No erudition can explain;

But left me with a deep distaste

For common speech, that still did seem

More meaningless than mountain waste,

Less human than the far-off stream.

So that a stranger in the land

Wherein I moved, where’er I went,

I dwelt, whom none could understand,

Or exorcise my discontent.

And I to them, and they to me

Seemed from two different planets come,

And, save to flower and wild-bird’s glee,

My heart was deaf, my soul was dumb.

V

But slowly dawned a happier time

When I began to apprehend,

And catch, as in some poet’s rhyme,

The intimations of a friend;

When Nature spake no unknown tongue,

But language kindred to my thought,

Till everything She said, I sung,

In notes unforced, in words unsought.

And I to Her so closely drew,

The seasons round, in mind and mood,

I felt at length as if we knew

Self-same affection, self-same feud:

That both alike scorned worldly aim,

Profit, applause, parade, and pride,

Whereby the love of generous fame

And worthy deeds grows petrified.

I did as yet not understand

Nature is far more vast than I,

Deep as the ocean, wide as land,

And overarching as the sky;

And but responded to my call,

And only felt and fed my need,

Because She doth the same for all

Who to her pity turn and plead.

VI

Shall man have mind, and Nature none,

Shall I, not she, have soul and heart?

Nay, rather, if we be not one,

Each is of each the counterpart.

She too may have within her breast

A conscience, if not like to yours,

A sense of rightness ill at rest,

Long as her waywardness endures.

And hence her thunder, earthquakes, hail,

Her levin bolts, her clouds’ discharge:

She sins upon a larger scale,

Because She is herself more large.

Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain

The heart of man, and wrecked his years,

The pity of the April rain,

And late repentance of her tears.

She is no better, worse, than we;

We can but say she seems more great,

That half her will, like ours, is free,

And half of it is locked in Fate.

Nor need we fear that we should err

Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,-

That there must be a God for Her,

If that there be a God for us.

VII

The chiming of the Sabbath bell,

The silence of the Sabbath fields,

Over the hamlet cast a spell

To which the gracious spirit yields.

Sound is there none of wheel or wain,

Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge,

No shout is heard in rustic lane,

No axe resounds in timbered gorge.

No flail beats time on granary floor,

The windmill’s rushing wings are stayed,

And children’s glee rings out no more

From hedgerow bank or primrose glade.

The big-boned team that firm and slow

Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray;

The basking covey seem to know

None will invade their peace to-day.

And speckless swains, and maidens neat,

Through rustic porch, down cottage stair,

Demurely up the village street

Stream onward to the House of Prayer.

They kneel as they were taught to kneel

In childhood, and demand not why,

But, as they chant or answer, feel

A vague communion with the sky.

VIII

But when the impetuous mind is spurred

To range through epochs great but gone,

And, heedless of dogmatic word,

With fearless ardour presses on,

Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine,

With point by Logic beaten out,

And, questioning tenets deemed divine

With human challenge, human doubt,

Hoists Reason’s sail, and for the haze

Of ocean quits Tradition’s shore,

Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays,

Then comes and kneels, but prays no more;

And only for the love he bears

To those who love him, and who reared

His frame to genuflexion, shares

In ritual, vain, if still revered.

His Gods are many or are none,

Saturn and Mithra, Christ and Jove,

Consorting, as the Ages run,

With Vestal choir or Pagan drove.

Abiding still by Northern shores,

He sees far off on Grecian coast

Veiled Aphrodite, but adores

Minerva and Apollo most.

Beauty of vision, voice, and mind,

Enthrall him so, that unto him

All Creeds seem true, if he but find

Siren, or saint, or seraphim.

And thus once more he dwells apart,

His inward self enswathed in mist,

Blending with poet’s pious heart

The dreams of pagan Hedonist.

IX

If Beauty be the Spirit’s quest,

Its adoration, creed, and shrine,

Wherein its restlessness finds rest,

And earthly type of the Divine,

Must there for such not somewhere be

A blending of all beauteous things

In some one form wherein we see

The sum of our imaginings?

The smile on mountain’s musing brow,

Sunrise and sunset, moon and star,

Wavelets around the cygnet’s prow,

Glamour anear and charm afar;

The silence of the silvery pool,

Autumn’s reserve and Summer’s fire,

Slow vanishings of Winter’s rule

To free full voice of April’s choir;-

The worshippers of Beauty find

In maiden form, and face, and tress;

Faint intimations of her mind

And undulating loveliness.

X

Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow!

Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!

Gone is the Winter, fled the snow,

And all that lives is flushed with Spring.

Harry the woods, young truant folk,

For flowers to deck your cottage sills,

And, underneath my orchard oak,

Cluster, ye golden daffodils!

Unfettered by domestic vow,

Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves,

And coo upon the self-same bough,

Inseparable turtle-doves.

Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky,

And with the choir of Heaven rejoice!

You cannot be more glad than I,

Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice:

Who see Her cheek more crimson glow,

And through Her veins love’s current stream,

And feel a fear She doth but know

Is kin to joy and dawning dream.

Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow!

Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!

Gone from the world are want and woe,

And I myself am one with Spring.

XI

They err who say that Love is blind,

Or, if it be, ’tis but in part,

And that, if for fair face it find

No counterpart in mind and heart,

It dwells on that which it beholds,

Fair fleshly vision void of soul,

Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds,

Longing’s fulfilment, end, and whole.

Were such my hapless carnal lot,

I too might evanescent bliss

Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot,

Then leave for some fresh loveliness.

But April gaze, and Summer tress,

With something of Autumnal thought,

In Her seem blent to crown and bless

A bond I long in dreams have sought.

She looks as though She came to grace

The earth, from world less soiled than this,

Around her head and virgin face

Halo of heavenly holiness.

XII

He who hath roamed through various lands,

And, wheresoe’er his steps are set,

The kindred meaning understands

Of spire, and dome, and minaret;

By Roman river, Stamboul’s sea,

In Peter’s or Sophia’s shrine,

Acknowledges with reverent knee

The presence of the One Divine;

Who, to the land he loves so well

Returning, towards the sunset hour

Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell

In lichened roof and grey church-tower;

Round whose foundations, side by side,

Sleep hamlet wit and village sage,

While loud the blackbird cheers his bride

Deep in umbrageous Vicarage.

XIII

Was it that sense which some aver

Foreshadows Fate it doth not see,

That gave unwittingly to Her

The name, for ever dear to me,

Borne by that tearful Mother whom,

Nigh unto Ostia’s shelving sand,

Augustine laid in lonely tomb,

Ere sailing for his Afric land?

But I at least should have foreseen,

When Monica to me had grown

Familiar word, that names may mean

More than by word and name is shown;

That nought can keep two lives apart

More than divorce ‘twixt mind and mind,

Even though heart be one with heart;-

Alas! Alas! Yes, Love is blind.

XIV

How could I think of jarring Creeds,

And riddles that unread remain,

Or ask if Heaven’s indulgence heeds

Broils born of man’s polemic brain,

And pause because my venturous mind

Had roamed through tracks of polar thought,

Whence mightiest spirits turn back blind,

Since finding not the thing they sought,

When Love, with luring gifts in hand,

Beauty, refinement, smile, caress,

Heart to surmise and understand,

And crowning grace of holiness,

Stood there before me, and, with gaze

I had been purblind not to see,

Said, “I to you will, all my days,

Give what you yearn to give to me”?

Must both then sorrow, while we live,

Because, rejoicing, I forgot

Something there was I could not give,

Because, alas! I had it not.

XV

She comes from Vicarage Garden, see!

Radiant as morning, lithe and tall,

Fresh lilies in her hand, but She

The loveliest lily of them all.

The thrushes in their fluting pause,

The bees float humming round her head,

Earth, air, and heaven shine out because

They hear her voice, and feel her tread.

Up in the fretted grey church-tower,

That rustic gaze for miles can see,

The belfry strikes the silvery hour,

Announcing her propinquity.

And I who, fearful to be late,

Passed long since through the deerpark pale,

And loitered by the churchyard gate,

Once more exclaim, “Hail! loved one! hail!”

We pass within, and up the nave,

Husht, because Heaven seems always there,

Wend choirward, where, devoutly grave,

She kneels, to breathe a silent prayer.

She takes the flowers I too have brought,

Blending them deftly with her own,

And ranges them, as quick as thought,

Around the white-draped altar-throne.

How could she know my gaze was not

On things unseen, but fixed on Her,

That, as She prayed, I all forgot

The worship in the worshipper?-

While She beheld, as in a glass,

The Light Divine, that I but sought

Sight of her soul?-Alas! Alas!

Love is yet blinder than I thought.

XVI

Who hath not seen a little cloud

Up from the clear horizon steal,

And, mounting lurid, mutter loud

Premonitory thunder-peal?

Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf

Trembles and writhes, as if in pain,

And then the sky, o’ercharged with grief,

Bursts into drenching tears of rain.

I through the years had sought to hide

My darkening doubts from simple sight.

‘Tis sacrilegious to deride

Faith of unquestioning neophyte.

And what, methought, is Doubt at best?

A sterile wind through seeded sedge

Blowing for nought, an empty nest

That lingers in a leafless hedge.

Pain, too, there is we should not share

With others lest it mar their joy;

There is a quiet bliss in prayer

None but the heartless would destroy.

But just as Love is quick divined

From heightened glow or visage pale,

The meditations of the Mind

Disclose themselves through densest veil.

And ’tis the unloving and least wise

Who through life’s inmost precincts press,

And with unsympathetic eyes

Outrage our sacred loneliness.

Then, when their sacrilegious gaze

The mournful void hath half surmised,

To some more tender soul they raise

The veil of ignorance it prized.

XVII

`What though I write farewell I could

Not utter, lest your gaze should chide,

‘Twill by your love be understood

My love is still, dear, at your side.

“Nor must we meet to speak goodbye,

Lest that my Will should lose its choice,

And conscience waver, for then I

Should see your face and hear your voice.

“But, when you find yourself once more,

Come back, come back and look for me,

Beside the little lowly door,

The Doorway of Humility.”

XVIII

There! Peace at last! The far-off roar

Of human passion dies away.

“Welcome to our broad shade once more,”

The waning woodlands seem to say:

The music of the vagrant wind,

That wandered aimlessly, is stilled;

The songless branches all remind

That Summer’s glory is fulfilled.

The fluttering of the falling leaves

Dimples the leaden pool awhile;

So Age impassively receives

Youth’s tale of troubles with a smile.

Thus, as the seasons steal away,

How much is schemed, how little done,

What splendid plans at break of day!

What void regrets at set of sun!

The world goes round, for you, for me,

For him who sleeps, for him who strives,

And the cold Fates indifferent see

Crowning or failure of our lives.

Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze!

Grow, sedges, sere on every pool!

Let each old glowing impulse freeze,

Let each old generous project cool!

It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth,

Self-sacrifice nor friendship true,

Makes venal devotees of earth

Prostrate themselves and worship you.

The consciousness of sovran powers,

The stubborn purpose, steadfast will,

Have ever, in this world of ours,

Achieved success, achieve it still.

Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit;

Great voices in the distance call.

If this be peace, enough of it!

I go. Fall, unseen foliage, fall!

XIX

Nay, but repress rebellious woe!

In grief ’tis not that febrile fool,

Passion, that can but overthrow,

But Resignation, that should rule.

In patient sadness lurks a gift

To purify the life it stings,

And, as the days move onward, lift

The lonely heart to loftier things;

Bringing within one’s ripening reach

The sceptre of majestic Thought,

Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach

The Wisdom to oneself it taught.

And unto what can man aspire,

On earth, more worth the striving for,

Than to be Reason’s loftier lyre,

And reconciling monitor;

To strike a more resounding string

And deeper notes of joy and pain,

Than such as but lamenting sing,

Or warble but a sensuous strain:

So, when my days are nearly sped,

And my last harvest labours done,

That I may have around my head

The halo of a setting sun.

Yet even if be heard above

Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim,

Better one hour of perfect love

Than an eternity of Fame!

XX

Where then for grief seek out the cure?

What scenes will bid my smart to cease?

High peaks should teach one to endure,

And lakes secluded bring one peace.

Farewell awhile, then, village bells,

Autumnal wood and harvest wain!

And welcome, as it sinks or swells,

The music of the mighty main,

That seems to say, now loud, now low,

Rising or falling, sweet or shrill,

“I pace, a sentry, to and fro,

To guard your Island fortress still.”

The roses falter on their stalk,

The late peach reddens on the wall,

The flowers along the garden walk

Unheeded fade, unheeded fall.

My gates unopened drip with rain,

The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor,

And, listening for my voice in vain,

Waileth along the corridor.

Within the old accustomed place

Where we so oft were wont to be,

Kneeling She prays, while down her face

The fruitless tears fall silently.

SWITZERLAND

XXI

Rain, wind, and rain. The writhing lake

Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke:

The mountains veil their heads, and make

Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak.

Through where the arching pinewoods make

Dusk cloisters down the mountain side,

The loosened avalanches take

Valeward their way, with death for guide,

And toss their shaggy manes and fling

To air their foam and tawny froth,

From ledge and precipice bound and spring,

With hungry roar and deepening wrath;

Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed,

And, rage for further ravin stayed,

They slumber, satiated, husht,

Upon the ruins they have made.

I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone,

Gaze on the spears of serried rain,

That faster, nigher, still are blown,

Then stream adown the window pane.

The peasant’s goatskin garments drip,

As home he wends with lowered head,

Shakes off the drops from lid and lip,

Then slinks within his châlet shed.

The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse,

The boats rock idly by the shore;

Only the swollen torrents course

With faster feet and fuller roar.

Mournful, I shape a mournful song,

And ask the heavens, but ask in vain,

“How long, how long?” Ah! not so long

As, in my heart, rain, wind, and rain.

XXII

I ask the dark, the dawn, the sun,

The domeward-pointing peaks of snow,

Lofty and low alike, but none

Will tell me what I crave to know.

My mind demands, “Whence, Whither, Why?”

From mountain slope and green defile,

And wait the answer. The reply-

A far-off irresponsive smile.

I ask the stars, when mortals sleep,

The pensive moon, the lonely winds;

But, haply if they know, they keep

The secret of secluded minds.

Shall I in vain, then, strive to find,

Straining towards merely fancied goal?

Where in the lily lurks the mind,

Where in the rose discern the soul?

More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake,

The mountains yet more heartless seem,

And life’s unceasing quest and ache

Only a dream within a dream.

We know no more, though racked with thought

Than he who, in yon châlet born,

Gives not the riddle, Life, a thought,

But lays him down and sleeps till morn.

Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel,

So suffer from a wider curse

Than Eden’s outcasts, for I feel

An exile in the universe.

The rudeness of his birth enures

His limbs to every season’s stings,

And, never probing, so endures

The sadness at the heart of things.

When lauwine growls, and thunder swells,

Their far-off clamour sounds to me

But as the noise of clanging bells

Above a silent sanctuary.

It is their silence that appals,

Their aspect motionless that awes,

When searching spirit vainly calls

On the effect to bare the Cause.

I get no answer, near or far;

The mountains, though they soar so high,

And scale the pathless ether, are

No nearer unto God than I.

There dwells nor mystery nor veil

Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod;

I, gazing on their frontage pale,

See but the waning ghost of God.

Is Faith then but a drug for sleep,

And Hope a fondly soothing friend

That bids us, when it sees us weep,

Wait for the End that hath no end?

Then do I hear voice unforgot

Wailing across the distance dim,

“Think, dear! If God existeth not,

Why are you always seeking Him?”

XXIII

Like glowing furnace of the forge,

How the winds rise and roar, as they

Up twisting valley, craggy gorge,

Seek, and still seek, to storm their way;

Then, baffled, up the open slope

With quickening pulses scale and pant,

Indomitably bent to cope

With bristling fronts of adamant.

All through the day resounds the strife,

Then doth at sunset hour subside:

So the fierce passions of our life

Slowly expire at eventide.

By Nature we are ne’er misled;

We see most truly when we dream.

A singer wise was he who said,

“Follow the gleam! Follow the gleam!”

XXIV

I dreamed, last night, again I stood,

Silent, without the village shrine,

While She in modest maidenhood

Left, fondly clasped, her hand in mine.

And, with a face as cerecloth white,

And tears like those that by the bier

Of loved one lost make dim the sight,

She poured her sorrows in mine ear.

“I love your voice, I love your gaze,

But there is something dearer still,

The faith that kneels, the hope that prays,

And bows before the Heavenly Will.

“Not where hills rise, or torrents roll,

Seek Him, nor yet alone, apart;

He dwells within the troubled soul,

His home is in the human heart.

“Withal, the peaceful mountains may

‘Twixt doubt and yearning end the strife:

So ponder, though you cannot pray,

And think some meaning into life:

“Nor like to those that cross the main

To wander witless through strange land,

Hearing unmastered tongues, disdain

The speech they do not understand.

“Firm stands my faith that they who sound

The depths of doubt Faith yet will save:

They are like children playing round

A still remembered mother’s grave;

“Not knowing, when they wax more old,

And somewhat can her vision share,

She will the winding-sheet unfold,

And beckon them to evening prayer.”

Then, with my hand betwixt her hands,

She laid her lips upon my brow,

And, as to one who understands,

Said, “Take once more my vestal vow.

“No other gaze makes mine to glow,

No other footstep stirs my heart,

To me you only dearer grow,

Dearer and nearer, more apart.

“Whene’er you come with humble mind,

The little Door stands open wide,

And, bending low, you still will find

Me waiting on the other side.”

Her silence woke me. . . . To your breast

Fold me, O sleep! and seal mine ears;

That She may roam through my unrest

Till all my dreams are drenched with tears!

XXV

Why linger longer, subject, here,

Where Nature sits and reigns alone,

Inspiring love not, only fear,

Upon her autocratic throne?

Her edicts are the rigid snow,

The wayward winds, the swaying branch;

She hath no pity to bestow,

Her law the lawless avalanche.

Though soon cascades will bound and sing,

That now but drip with tears of ice,

And upland meadows touched by Spring

Blue gentian blend with edelweiss,

Hence to the Land of youthful dreams,

The Land that taught me all I know.

Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams;

Yet take my thanks before I go.

You gave me shelter when I fled,

But sternly bade me stem my tears,

Nor aimless roam with rustling tread

‘Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years.

ITALY

XXVI

Upon the topmost wheel-track steep,

The parting of two nations’ ways,

Athwart stone cross engraven deep,

The name “Italia” greets the gaze!

I trembled, when I saw it first,

With joy, my boyish longings fed,

The headspring of my constant thirst,

The altar of my pilgrim tread.

Now once again the magic word,

So faintly borne to Northern home,

Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard

Beneath some universal dome.

The forests soften to a smile,

A smile the very mountains wear,

Through mossy gorge and grassed defile

Torrents race glad and debonair.

From casement, balcony and door,

Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine,

And sun-bronzed faces bask before

Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year’s wine.

Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers

Take, like their lords, no heed of time.

Hark! now the evening star appears,

Ave Maria belfries chime.

The maidens knit, and glance, and sing,

With glowing gaze ‘neath ebon tress,

And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring,

Seem burgeoning into tenderness.

On waveless lake where willows weep,

The Borromean Islands rest

As motionless as babe asleep

Upon a slumbering Mother’s breast.

O Land of sunshine, song, and Love!

Whether thy children reap or sow,

Of Love they chant on hills above,

Of Love they sing in vale below.

But what avail the love-linked hands,

And love-lit eyes, to them that roam

Passionless through impassioned lands,

Since they have left their heart at home!

XXVII

Among my dreams, now known as dreams

In this my reawakened life,

I thought that by historic streams,

Apart from stress, aloof from strife,

By rugged paths that twist and twine

Through olive slope and chesnut wood

Upward to mediaeval shrine,

Or high conventual brotherhood,

Along the mountain-curtained track

Round peaceful lake where wintry bands

Halt briefly but to bivouac

Ere blustering on to Northern lands;-

Through these, through all I first did see,

With me to share my raptures none,

That nuptialled Monica would be

My novice and companion:

That we should float from mere to mere,

And sleep within some windless cove,

With nightingales to lull the ear,

From ilex wood and orange grove;

Linger at hamlets lost to fame,

That still wise-wandering feet beguile,

To gaze on frescoed wall or frame

Lit by Luini’s gracious smile.

Now, but companioned by my pain,

Among each well-remembered scene

I can but let my Fancy feign

The happiness that might have been;

Imagine that I hear her voice,

Imagine that I feel her hand,

And I, enamoured guide, rejoice

To see her swift to understand.

Alack! Imagination might

As lief with rustic Virgil roam,

Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight

At Pliny’s philosophic home;

Hear one majestically trace

Rome’s world-wide sway from wattled wall,

And read upon the other’s face

The omens of an Empire’s fall.

XXVIII

Like moonlight seen through forest leaves,

She shines upon me from afar,

What time men reap the ripened sheaves,

And Heaven rains many a falling star.

I gaze up to her lofty height,

And feel how far we dwell apart:

O if I could, this night, this night,

Fold her full radiance to my heart!

But She in Heaven, and I on earth,

Still journey on, but each alone;

She, maiden Queen of sacred birth,

Who with no consort shares her throne.

XXIX

What if She ever thought She saw

The self within myself prefer

Communion with the silent awe

Of far-off mountains more than Her;

That Nature hath the mobile grace

To make life with our moods agree,

And so had grown the Loved One’s face,

Since it nor checked nor chided me;

Or from the tasks that irk and tire

I sought for comfort from the Muse,

Because it grants the mind’s desire

All that familiar things refuse.

How vain such thought! The face, the form,

Of mountain summits but express,

Clouded or clear, in sun or storm,

Feebly Her spirit’s loftiness.

Did I explore from pole to pole,

In Nature’s aspect I should find

But faint reflections of Her soul,

Dim adumbrations of Her mind.

O come and test with lake, with stream,

With mountain, which the stronger be,

Thou, my divinest dearest dream,

My Muse, and more than Muse, to me!

XXX

They tell me that Jehovah speaks

In silent grove, on lonely strand,

And summit of the mountain peaks;

Yet there I do not understand.

The stars, disdainful of my thought,

Majestic march toward their goal,

And to my nightly watch have brought

No explanation to my soul.

The truth I seek I cannot find,

In air or sky, on land or sea;

If the hills have their secret mind,

They will not yield it up to me:

Like one who lost mid lonely hills

Still seeks but cannot find his way,

Since guide is none save winding rills,

That seem themselves, too, gone astray.

And so from rise to set of sun,

At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze,

I but behold the face of One

Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays.

What know I that She doth not know?

What I know not, She understands:

With heavenly gifts She overflows,

While I have only empty hands.

O weary wanderer! Best forego

This questioning of wind and wave.

For you the sunshine and the snow,

The womb, the cradle, and the grave.

XXXI

How blest, when organ concords swell,

And anthems are intoned, are they

Who neither reason nor rebel,

But meekly bow their heads and pray.

And such the peasants mountain-bred,

Who hail to-day with blithe accord

Her Feast Who to the Angel said,

“Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!”

Downward they wind from pastoral height,

Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers,

To wend to shrine more richly dight,

And bring their gift of wilding flowers;

Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs,

And lay these at Her statue’s base,

Who never, deem they, intercedes

Vainly before the Throne of Grace.

Shall I, because I stand apart,

A stranger to their pious vows,

Scorn their humility of heart

That pleads before the Virgin Spouse,

Confiding that the Son will ne’er,

If in His justice wroth with them,

Refuse to harken to Her prayer

Who suckled Him in Bethlehem?

Of all the intercessors born

By man’s celestial fancy, none

Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn,

Lowly and lone, as She hath done.

The maiden faithful to Her shrine

Bids demons of temptation flee,

And mothers fruitful as the vine

Retain their vestal purity.

Too trustful love, by lust betrayed,

And by cold worldlings unforgiven,

Unto Her having wept and prayed,

Faces its fate, consoled and shriven.

The restless, fiercely probing mind

No honey gleans, though still it stings.

What comfort doth the spirit find

In Reason’s endless reasonings?

They have no solace for my grief,

Compassion none for all my pain:

They toss me like the fluttering leaf,

And leave me to the wind and rain.

XXXII

If Conscience be God’s Law to Man,

Then Conscience must perforce arraign

Whatever falls beneath the ban

Of that allotted Suzerain.

And He, who bids us not to swerve,

Whither the wayward passions draw,

From its stern sanctions, must observe

The limits of the self-same Law.

Yet, if obedient Conscience scan

The sum of wrongs endured and done

Neither by act nor fault of Man,

They rouse it to rebellion.

Life seems of life by life bereft

Through some immitigable curse,

And Man sole moral being left

In a non-moral Universe.

My Conscience would my Will withstand,

Did Will project a world like this:

Better Eternal vacuum still,

Than murder, lust, and heartlessness!

If Man makes Conscience, then being good

Is only being worldly wise,

And universal brotherhood

A comfortable compromise.

O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod!

O groans of fratricidal strife!

Who will explain the ways of God,

That I may be at peace with life!

The moral riddle ’tis that haunts,

Primeval and unending curse,

Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts

A Heaven-created Universe.

Yet whence came Life, and how begin?

Rolleth the globe by choice or chance?

Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in

This prison-house of ignorance!

FLORENCE

XXXIII

City acclaimed ere Dante’s days

Fair, and baptized in field of flowers,

Once more I scan with tender gaze

Your glistening domes, your storied towers.

I feel as if long years had flown

Since first with eager heart I came,

And, girdled by your mountain zone,

Found you yet fairer than your fame.

It was the season purple-sweet

When figs are plump, and grapes are pressed,

And all your sons with following feet

Bore a dead Poet to final rest.

You seemed to fling your gates ajar,

And softly lead me by the hand,

Saying, “Behold! henceforth you are

No stranger in the Tuscan land.”

And though no love my love can wean

From native crag and cradling sea,

Yet Florence from that hour hath been

More than a foster-nurse to me.

When mount I terraced slopes arrayed

In bridal bloom of peach and pear,

While under olive’s phantom shade

Lupine and beanflower scent the air,

The wild-bees hum round golden bay,

The green frog sings on fig-tree bole,

And, see! down daisy-whitened way

Come the slow steers and swaying pole.

The fresh-pruned vine-stems, curving, bend

Over the peaceful wheaten spears,

And with the glittering sunshine blend

Their transitory April tears.

O’er wall and trellis trailed and wound,

Hang roses blushing, roses pale;

And, hark! what was that silvery sound?

The first note of the nightingale.

Curtained, I close my lids and dream

Of Beauty seen not but surmised,

And, lulled by scent and song, I seem

Immortally imparadised.

When from the deep sweet swoon I wake

And gaze past slopes of grape and grain,

Where Arno, like some lonely lake,

Silvers the far-off seaward plain,

I see celestial sunset fires

That lift us from this earthly leaven,

And darkly silent cypress spires

Pointing the way from hill to Heaven.

Then something more than mortal steals

Over the wavering twilight air,

And, messenger of nightfall, peals

From each crowned peak a call to prayer.

And now the last meek prayer is said,

And, in the hallowed hush, there is

Only a starry dome o’erhead,

Propped by columnar cypresses.

XXXIV

Re-roaming through this palaced town,

I suddenly, ‘neath grim-barred pile,

Catch sight of Dante’s awful frown,

Or Leonardo’s mystic smile;

Then, swayed by memory’s fancy, stroll

To where from May-day’s flaming pyre

Savonarola’s austere soul

Went up to Heaven in tongues of fire;

Or Buonarroti’s plastic hand

Made marble block from Massa’s steep

Dawn into Day at his command,

Then plunged it into Night and Sleep.

No later wanderings can dispel

The glamour of the bygone years;

And, through the streets I know so well,

I scarce can see my way for tears.

XXXV

A sombre shadow seems to fall

On comely altar, transept fair;

The saints are still on frescoed wall,

But who comes thither now for prayer?

Men throng from far-off stranger land,

To stare, to wonder, not to kneel,

With map and guide-book in their hand

To tell them what to think and feel.

They scan, they prate, they marvel why

The figures still expressive glow,

Oblivious they were painted by

Adoring Frà Angelico.

Did Dante from his tomb afar

Return, his wrongs redressed at last,

And see you, Florence, as you are,

Half alien to your gracious Past,

Finding no Donatello now,

No reverent Giotto ‘mong the quick,

To glorify ascetic vow

Of Francis or of Dominic;

Self-exiled by yet sterner fate

Than erst, he would from wandering cease,

And, ringing at monastic gate,

Plead, “I am one who craves for peace.”

And what he sought but ne’er could find,

Shall I, less worthy, hope to gain,

The freedom of the tranquil mind,

The lordship over loss and pain?

More than such peace I found when I

Did first, in unbound youth, repair

To Tuscan shrine, Ausonian sky.

I found it, for I brought it there.

XXXVI

Yet Art brings peace, itself is Peace,

And, as I on these frescoes gaze,

I feel all fretful tumults cease

And harvest calm of mellower days.

For Soul too hath its seasons. Time,

That leads Spring, Summer, Autumn, round,

Makes our ephemeral passions chime

With something permanent and profound.

And, as in Nature, April oft

Strives to revert to wintry hours,

But shortly upon garth and croft

Re-sheds warm smiles and moistening showers,

Or, for one day, will Autumn wear

The gayer garments of the Spring,

And then athwart the wheatfields bare

Again her graver shadows fling;

So, though the Soul hath moods that veer,

And seem to hold no Rule in awe,

Like the procession of the year,

It too obeys the sovran Law.

Nor Art itself brings settled peace,

Until the mind is schooled to know

That gusts subside and tumults cease

Only in sunset’s afterglow.

Life’s contradictions vanish then,

Husht thought replacing clashing talk

Among the windy ways of men.

‘Tis in the twilight Angels walk.

ROME

XXXVII

The last warm gleams of sunset fade

From cypress spire and stonepine dome,

And, in the twilight’s deepening shade,

Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome.

Husht the Madonna’s Evening Bell;

The steers lie loosed from wain and plough;

The vagrant monk is in his cell,

The meek nun-novice cloistered now.

Pedant’s presumptuous voice no more

Vexes the spot where Caesar trod,

And o’er the pavement’s soundless floor

Come banished priest and exiled God.

The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among

The regal hillside’s tangled scrubs,

With doting gaze and fondling tongue

Suckles the Vestal’s twin-born cubs.

Yet once again Evander leads

Æneas to his wattled home,

And, throned on Tiber’s fresh-cut reeds,

Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome.

From out the tawny dusk one hears

The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids,

The rush to arms, then swift the tears

That separate the clashing blades.

The Lictors with their fasces throng

To quell the Commons’ rising roar,

As Tullia’s chariot flames along,

Splashed with her murdered father’s gore.

Her tresses free from band or comb,

Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall,

And fresh as Fiumicino’s foam,

Mounts her pentelic pedestal.

With languid lids, and lips apart,

And curving limbs like wave half-furled,

Unarmed she dominates the heart,

And without sceptre sways the world.

Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars

Stalks through the Forum’s fallen fanes,

Or, changed of mien and healed of scars,

Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains.

With waves of song from wakening lyre

Apollo routs the wavering night,

While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir

Wind chanting up the Sacred Height,

Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed,

And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam,

Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed,

And frowns against the foes of Rome.

You cannot kill the Gods. They still

Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned,

Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill,

And renovate their rites profaned.

Diana’s hounds still lead the chase,

Still Neptune’s Trident crests the sea,

And still man’s spirit soars through space

On feathered heels of Mercury.

No flood can quench the Vestals’ Fire;

The Flamen’s robes are still as white

As ere the Salii’s armoured choir

Were drowned by droning anchorite.

The saint may seize the siren’s seat,

The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun;

Ne’er will, though all beside should fleet,

The Olympian Presence be withdrawn.

Here, even in the noontide glare,

The Gods, recumbent, take their ease;

Go look, and you will find them there,

Slumbering behind some fallen frieze.

But most, when sunset glow hath paled,

And come, as now, the twilight hour,

In vesper vagueness dimly veiled

I feel their presence and their power.

What though their temples strew the ground,

And to the ruin owls repair,

Their home, their haunt, is all around;

They drive the cloud, they ride the air.

And, when the planets wend their way

Along the never-ageing skies,

“Revere the Gods” I hear them say;

“The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.”

Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers

Through marble fissures, granite rents;

Only Imagination rears

Imperishable monuments.

Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine,

Level the altar, fire the fane:

There is no razing the Divine;

The Gods return, the Gods remain.

XXXVIII

Christ is arisen. The place wherein

They laid Him shows but cerements furled,

And belfry answers belfry’s din

To ring the tidings round the world.

Grave Hierarchs come, an endless band,

In jewelled mitre, cope embossed,

Who bear Rome’s will to every land

In all the tongues of Pentecost.

Majestic, along marble floor,

Walk Cardinals in blood-red robe,

Martyrs for Faith and Christ no more,

Who gaze as though they ruled the globe.

With halberds bare and doublets slashed,

Emblems that war will never cease,

Come martial guardians, unabashed,

And march afront the Prince of Peace.

Then, in his gestatorial Chair

See Christ’s vicegerent, bland, benign,

To crowds all prostrate as in prayer

Lean low, and make the Holy Sign.

Then trumpets shrill, and organ peals,

Throughout the mighty marble pile,

Whileas a myriad concourse kneels

In dense-packed nave and crowded aisle.

Hark to the sudden hush! Aloft

From unseen source in empty dome

Swells prayerful music silvery-soft,

Borne from far-off celestial Home.

Then, when the solemn rite is done,

The worshippers stream out to where

Dance fountains glittering in the sun,

While expectation fills the air.

Now on high balcony He stands,

And-save for the Colonna curse,-

Blesses with high-uplifted hands

The City and the Universe.

Christ is arisen! But scarce as when,

On the third day of death and gloom,

Came ever-loving Magdalen

With tears and spices to His tomb.

XXXIX

The Tiber winds its sluggish way

Through niggard tracts whence Rome’s command

Once cast the shadow of her sway,

O’er Asian city, Afric sand.

Nor even yet doth She resign

Her sceptre. Still the spell is hers,

Though she may seem a rifled shrine

‘Mid circumjacent sepulchres.

One after one, they came, they come,

Gaul, Goth, Savoy, to work their will;

She answers, when She most seems dumb,

“I wore the Crown, I wear it still.

“From Jove I first received the gift,

I from Jehovah wear it now,

Nor shall profane invader lift

The diadem from off my brow.

“The Past is mine, and on the Past

The Future builds; and Time will rear

The next strong structure on the last,

Where men behold but shattered tier.

“The Teuton hither hies to teach,

To prove, disprove, to delve and probe.

Fool! Pedant! Does he think to reach

The deep foundations of the globe?”

For me, I am content to tread

On Sabine dust and Gothic foe.

Leave me to deepening silent dread

Of vanished Empire’s afterglow.

In this Imperial wilderness

Why rashly babble and explore?

O, let me know a little less,

So I may feel a little more!

XL

For upward of one thousand years,

Here men and women prayed to Jove,

With smiles and incense, gifts and tears,

In secret shrine, or civic grove;

And, when Jove did not seem to heed,

Sought Juno’s mediatorial power,

Or begged fair Venus intercede

And melt him in his amorous hour.

Sages invoked Minerva’s might;

The Poet, ere he struck the lyre,

Prayed to the God of Song and Light

To touch the strings with hallowed fire.

With flaming herbs were altars smoked

Sprinkled with blood and perfumed must,

And gods and goddesses invoked

To second love or sanction lust.

And did they hear and heed the prayer,

Or, through that long Olympian reign,

Were they divinities of air

Begot of man’s fantastic brain?

In Roman halls their statues still

Serenely stand, but no one now

Ascends the Capitolian Hill,

To render thanks, or urge the vow.

Through now long centuries hath Rome

Throned other God, preached other Creed,

That here still have their central home,

And feed man’s hope, content his need.

Against these, too, will Time prevail?

No! Let whatever gestates, be,

Secure will last the tender tale

From Bethlehem to Calvary.

Throughout this world of pain and loss,

Man ne’er will cease to bend his knee

To Crown of Thorns, to Spear, to Cross,

And Doorway of Humility.

XLI

If Reason be the sole safe guide

In man implanted from above,

Why crave we for one only face,

Why consecrate the name of Love?

Faces there are no whit less fair,

Yet ruddier lip, more radiant eye,

Same rippling smile, same auburn hair,

But not for us. Say, Reason, why.

Why bound our hearts when April pied

Comes singing, or when hawthorn blows?

Doth logic in the lily hide,

And where’s the reason in the rose?

Why weld our keels and launch our ships,

If Reason urge some wiser part,

Kiss England’s Flag with dying lips

And fold its glories to the heart?

In this gross world we touch and see,

If Reason be no trusty guide,

For world unseen why should it be

The sole explorer justified?

The homing swallow knows its nest,

Sure curves the comet to its goal,

Instinct leads Autumn to its rest,

And why not Faith the homing soul?

Is Reason so aloof, aloft,

It doth not ‘gainst itself rebel,

And are not Reason’s reasonings oft

By Reason proved unreasonable?

He is perplexed no more, who prays,

“Hail, Mary Mother, full of grace!”

O drag me from Doubt’s endless maze,

And let me see my Loved One’s face!

XLII

“Upon this rock!” Yet even here

Where Christian God ousts Pagan wraith,

Rebellious Reason whets its spear,

And smites upon the shield of Faith.

On sacred mount, down seven-hilled slopes,

Fearless it faces foe and friend,

Saying to man’s immortal hopes,

“Whatso began, perforce must end.”

Not men alone, but gods too, die;

Fanes are, like hearths, left bare and lone;

This earth will into fragments fly,

And Heaven itself be overthrown.

Why then should Man immortal be?

He is but fleeting form, to fade,

Like momentary cloud, or sea

Of waves dispersed as soon as made.

Yet if ’tis Force, not Form, survives,

Meseems therein that one may find

Some comfort for distressful lives;

For, if Force ends not, why should Mind?

Is Doubt more forceful than Belief?

The doctor’s cap than friar’s cowl?

O ripeness of the falling leaf!

O wisdom of the moping owl!

Man’s Mind will ever stand apart

From Science, save this have for goal

The evolution of the heart,

And sure survival of the Soul.

XLIII

The Umbilicum lonely stands

Where once rose porch and vanished dome;

But he discerns who understands

That every road may lead to Rome.

Enthroned in Peter’s peaceful Chair,

The spiritual Caesar sways

A wider Realm of earth and air

Than trembled at Octavian’s gaze.

His universal arms embrace

The saint, the sinner, and the sage,

And proffer refuge, comfort, grace

To tribulation’s pilgrimage.

Here scientific searchers find

Precursors for two thousand years,

Who in a drouthy world divined

Fresh springs for human doubts and fears.

Here fair chaste Agnes veils her face

From prowlers of the sensual den,

And pity, pardon, and embrace

Await repentant Magdalen.

Princess and peasant-mother wend

To self-same altar, self-same shrine,

And Cardinal and Patriarch bend

Where lepers kneel, and beggars whine.

And is there then, in my distress,

No road, no gate, no shrine, for me?

The answer comes, “Yes, surely, yes!

The Doorway of Humility.”

O rival Faiths! O clamorous Creeds!

Would you but hush your strife in prayer,

And raise one Temple for our needs,

Then, then, we all might worship there.

But dogma new with dogma old

Clashes to soothe the spirit’s grief,

And offer to the unconsoled

Polyglot Babel of Belief!

XLIV

The billows roll, and rise, and break,

Around me; fixedly shine the stars

In clear dome overhead, and take

Their course, unheeding earthly jars.

Yet if one’s upward gaze could be

But stationed where the planets are,

The star were restless as the sea,

The sea be tranquil as the star.

Hollowed like cradle, then like grave,

Now smoothly curved, now shapeless spray,

Withal the undirected wave

Forms, and reforms, and knows its way.

Then, waters, bear me on where He,

Ere death absolved at Christian font,

Removed Rome’s menaced majesty

Eastward beyond the Hellespont.

Foreseeing not what Fate concealed,

But Time’s caprice would there beget,

That Cross would unto Crescent yield,

Caesar and Christ to Mahomet.

Is it then man’s predestined state

To search for, ne’er to find, the Light?

Arise, my Star, illuminate

These empty spaces of the Night!

XLV

Last night I heard the cuckoo call

Among the moist green glades of home,

And in the Chase around the Hall

Saw the May hawthorn flower and foam.

Deep in the wood where primrose stars

Paled before bluebell’s dazzling reign,

The nightingale’s sad sobbing bars

Rebuked the merle’s too joyful strain.

The kine streamed forth from stall and byre,

The foal frisked round its mother staid,

The meads, by sunshine warmed, took fire,

And lambs in pasture, bleating, played.

The uncurbed rivulets raced to where

The statelier river curled and wound,

And trout, of human step aware,

Shot through the wave without a sound.

Adown the village street, as clear

As in one’s wakeful mid-day hours,

Beheld I Monica drawing near,

Her vestal lap one crib of flowers.

Lending no look to me, she passed

By the stone path, as oft before,

Between old mounds Spring newly grassed,

And entered through the Little Door.

Led by her feet, I hastened on,

But, ere my feverish steps could get

To the low porch, lo! Morning shone

On Moslem dome and minaret!

CONSTANTINOPLE

XLVI

Now Vesper brings the sunset hour,

And, where crusading Knighthood trod,

Muezzin from his minaret tower

Proclaims, “There is no God but God!”

Male God who shares his godhead with

No Virgin Mother’s sacred tear,

But finds on earth congenial kith

In wielders of the sword and spear:

Male God who on male lust bestows

The ruddy lip, the rounded limb,

And promises, at battle’s close,

Houri, not saint nor seraphim.

Swift through the doubly-guarded stream,

Shoots the caïque ‘neath oarsmen brisk,

While from its cushioned cradle gleam

The eyes of yashmaked odalisque.

Unchanged adown the changing years,

Here where the Judas blossoms blaze,

Against Sophia’s marble piers

The scowling Muslim lean and gaze;

And still at sunset’s solemn hour,

Where Christ’s devout Crusader trod,

Defiant from the minaret’s tower

Proclaim, “There is no God but God!”

XLVII

Three rival Rituals. One revered

In that loved English hamlet where,

With flowers in Vicarage garden reared,

She decks the altar set for prayer:

Another, where majestic Rome,

With fearless Faith and flag unfurled

‘Gainst Doubt’s ephemeral wave and foam,

Demands obedience from the world.

The third, where now I stand, and where

Two hoary Continents have met,

And Islam guards from taint and tare

Monistic Creed of Mahomet.

Yet older than all three, but banned

To suffer still the exile’s doom

From shrine where Turkish sentries stand,

And Christians wrangle round Christ’s tomb.

Where then find Creed, divine or dead,

All may embrace, and none contemn?-

Remember Who it was that said,

“Not here, nor at Jerusalem!”

ATHENS

XLVIII

To Acrocorinth’s brow I climb,

And, lulled in retrospective bliss,

Descry, as through the mists of time,

Faintly the far Acropolis.

Below me, rivers, mountains, vales,

Wide stretch of ancient Hellas lies:

Symbol of Song that never fails,

Parnassus communes with the skies.

I linger, dream-bound by the Past,

Till sundown joins time’s deep abyss,

Then skirt, through shadows moonlight-cast,

Lone strand of sailless Salamis,

Until Eleusis gleams through dawn,

Where, though a suppliant soul I come,

The veil remains still unwithdrawn,

And all the Oracles are dumb.

So onward to the clear white Light,

Where, though the worshippers be gone,

Abides on unmysterious height

The calm unquestioning Parthenon.

Find I, now there I stand at last,

That naked Beauty, undraped Truth,

Can satisfy our yearnings vast,

The doubts of age, the dreams of youth;

That, while we ask, in futile strife,

From altar, tripod, fount, or well,

Form is the secret soul of life,

And Art the only Oracle;

That Hera and Athena, linked

With Aphrodite, hush distress,

And, in their several gifts distinct,

Withal are Triune Goddesses?

That mortal wiser then was He

Who gave the prize to Beauty’s smile,

Divides his gifts among the Three,

And thuswise baffles Discord’s guile?

But who is wise? The nobler twain,

Who the restraining girdle wear,

Contend too often all in vain

With sinuous curve and frolic hair.

Just as one sees in marble, still,

Pan o’er Apollo’s shoulder lean,

Suggesting to the poet’s quill

The sensual note, the hint obscene.

Doth then the pure white Light grow dim,

And must it be for ever thus?

Listen! I hear a far-off Hymn,

Veni, Creator, Spiritus!

XLIX

The harvest of Hymettus drips

As sweet as when the Attic bees

Swarmed round the honey-laden lips

Of heavenly-human Sophocles.

The olives are as green in grove

As in the days the poets bless,

When Pallas with Poseidon strove

To be the City’s Patroness.

The wine-hued main, white marble frieze,

Dome of blue ether over all,

One still beholds, but nowhere sees

Panathenaic Festival.

O’erhead, no Zeus or frowns or nods,

Olympus none in air or skies;

Below, a sepulchre of Gods,

And tombs of dead Divinities.

Yet, are they dead? Still stricken blind,

Tiresiaslike, are they that see,

With bold uncompromising mind,

Wisdom in utter nudity;

Experiencing a kindred fate

With the First Parents of us all,

Jehovah thrust through Eden’s Gate,

When Knowledge brought about their Fall.

Hath Aphrodite into foam,

Whence She first flowered, sunk back once more,

And doth She nowhere find a home,

Or worship, upon Christian shore?

Her shrine is in the human breast,

To find her none need soar or dive.

Goodness or Loveliness our quest,

The ever-helpful Gods survive.

Hellas retorts, when Hebrew gibes

At Gods of levity and lust,

“God of Judaea’s wandering tribes

Was jealous, cruel, and unjust.”

Godhead, withal, remains the same,

And Art embalms its symbols still;

As Poets, when athirst for Fame,

Still dream of Aganippe’s rill.

L

Why still pursue a bootless quest,

And wander heartsore farther East,

Because unanswered, south or west,

By Pagan seer or Christian priest?

Brahma and Buddha, what have they

To offer to my shoreless search?

“Let Contemplation be,” they say,

“Your ritual, Nothingness your Church.

“Passion and purpose both forsake,

Echoes from non-existent wall;

We do but dream we are awake,

Ourselves the deepest dream of all.

“We dream we think, feel, touch, and see,

And what these are, still dreaming, guess,

Though there is no Reality

Behind their fleeting semblances.”

Thus the East answers my appeal,

Denies, and so illudes, my want.

Alas! Could I but cease to feel,

Brahma should be my Hierophant.

But, hampered by my Western mind,

I cannot set the Spirit free

From Matter, but Illusion find,

Of all, the most illusory.

DELPHI

LI

The morning mists that hid the bay

And curtained mountains fast asleep,

Begin to feel the touch of day,

And roll from off both wave and steep.

In floating folds they curve and rise,

Then slowly melt and merge in air,

Till high above me glow the skies,

And cloudless sunshine everywhere.

Parnassus wears nor veil nor frown,

Windless the eagle wings his way,

As I from Delphi gaze adown

On Salona and Amphissa.

It was the sovran Sun that drew

Aloft and scattered morning haze,

And now fills all the spacious blue

With its own glorifying rays.

And, no less sovran than the sun,

Imagination brings relief

Of morning light to shadows dun,

To heart’s distress, and spirit’s grief.

Parnassus boasts no loftier peak

Than Poet’s heavenward song; which, though

Harbouring among the sad and weak,

Lifteth aloft man’s griefs below.

Though sun-bronzed Phocian maidens lave

Their kerchiefs in Castalia’s spring,

The Muses linger round its wave,

And aid the pilgrim sent to sing.

And, listening there, I seem to hear

The unseen Oracle say, “Be strong:

Subdue the sigh, repress the tear,

And let not sorrow silence Song.

“You now have learnt enough from pain;

And, if worse anguish lurk behind,

Breathe in it some unselfish strain,

And with grief’s wisdom aid your kind.

“Who but of his own suffering sings,

Is like an eagle, robbed, distressed,

That vainly shrieks and beats its wings,

Because it cannot find its nest.

“Let male Imagination wed

The orphan, Sorrow, to console

Its virgin loneness, whence are bred

Serenity and self-control.

“Hence let the classic breezes blow

You to your Land beyond the sea,

That you may make, for others’ woe,

Your own a healing melody;

“To wintry woe no more a slave,

But, having dried your April tears,

Behold a helpful harvest wave

From ridges of the fallow years.”

LII

Rebuked thus by the stately Past,

Whose solemn choruses endure

Through voices new and visions vast,

And centuries of sepulture,

Because, serene, it never blinked

At sheen or shadow of the sun,

But Hades and Olympus linked

With Salamis and Marathon;

Which held despondency at bay

And, while revering Fate’s decree,

Reconciled with majestic lay

Man to the Human Tragedy;

To Gods of every land I vowed,

Judaea, Hellas, Mecca, Rome,

No more to live by sorrow bowed,

But, wending backward to my home,

Thenceforth to muse on woe more wide

Than individual distress,

The loftier Muses for my guide,

Minerva for my monitress;

Nor yet to scorn the tender aid

Of Christian martyr, virgin, sage,

And, meekly pondering in the shade,

Proffer ripe counsel to my Age.

And, haply, since ’tis Song alone

Can baffle death, and conquer time,

Maiden unborn in days unknown,

Under the leaves of fragrant lime,

Scanning the verse that here is writ,

While cherishing some secret smart

Of love or loss, may glean from it

Some comfort for her weary heart;

And, gently warned, grave minds may own

The world hath more to bear than they,

And, while I dream ‘neath mossy stone,

Repeat my name, and love my lay.

LIII

Scarce to the all-indwelling Power

That vow was uttered, ere there came

A messenger in boyhood’s flower,

Winged with his search, his face aflame.

From Amphissa he straight had clomb,

Thridding that devious mountain land,

With letter from my far-off home,

And written by my Loved One’s hand.

“Come to me where I drooping lie.

None yet have died of Love, they say:

Withal, I sometimes think that I

Have prayed and sighed my life away.

“I want your absolution, dear,

For whatso wrong I may have done;

My conscience waneth less severe,

In softness of the setting sun.

“’Twas I, ’twas I, far more than you,

That stood in need, as now I see,

Stooping, to enter meekly through

The Doorway of Humility.

“In vain I turn to Throne of Grace,

Where sorrows cease, and tears are dry;

I fain once more would see your face,

And hear your voice, before I die.”

ENGLAND

LIV

The oak logs smoulder on my hearth,

Though round them hums no household talk;

The roses in the garden-garth

Hang mournfully on curving stalk.

My wolf-hound round me leaps and bays,

That wailed lost footsteps when I went:

He little knows the grief that weighs

On my return from banishment.

Half Autumn now, half Summer yet,

For Nature hath a human heart,

It seems as though they, having met,

To take farewell, are loth to part.

The splendour of the Year’s decline

Hath not yet come. One still can see

Late honeysuckle intertwine

With Maiden’s-Bower and briony.

The bracken-fronds, fast yellowing, tower

From out sere needles of the pine;

Now hawkweed blooms where foxgloves flower,

And bramble where once eglantine.

And, as I wend with hurrying feet

Across the park, along the lane

That leads unto the hamlet street,

And cradle of my bliss and bane,

In cottage plots on either side,

O’er mignonette and fragrant stock

Soar tiger-lilies lithe and tall,

And homely-sheltered hollyhock.

And when I reach the low grey wall

That skirts God’s-acre on the hill,

I see, awaiting my recall,

The Little Door stand open still.

A dip, a slight descent, and then

Into the Vicarage Walk I passed;

It seemed as though the tongues of men

Had left it since I saw it last.

Round garden-plot, in westering sun,

Her agëd parents slowly stepped:

Her Mother had the face of one

Who oft hath prayed, and oft hath wept.

She wore the silent plaintive grace

Of Autumn just before its close,

And on her slowly fading face

The pathos of November rose.

With pitying gaze and accents kind,

“Go in,” she said, “and mount the stair;

And you through open door will find

That Monica awaits you there.”

LV

I mounted. At half-open door

Pausing, I softly called her name,

As one would pause and halt before

Heaven’s Gateway. But no answer came.

She lies, methought, in Sleep’s caress,

So, passing in, I seemed to see,

So saintly white the vision, less

A chamber than a Sanctuary.

Vestured in white, on snow-white bed,

She lay, as dreaming something sweet,

Madonna lilies at her head,

Madonna lilies at her feet.

A thought, I did not dare to speak,-

“Is this the sleep of life or death?”

And, with my cheek against her cheek,

Listening, I seemed to hear her breath.

‘Twas Love’s last blindness not to see

Her sinless soul had taken wing

Unto the Land, if such there be,

Where saints adore, and Seraphs sing.

And yet I felt within my heart,

Though lids were closed and lips were dumb,

That, for Love’s sake, her soul in part

Had lingered here, till I should come.

I kissed her irresponsive hand,

I laid my lips on her cold brow,

That She, like me, should understand

‘Twas thus I sealed our nuptial vow.

And then I saw upon her breast

A something writ, she fain had said

Had I been near, to me addressed,

Which, kneeling down, I took and read.

LVI

“I prayed I might prolong my years

Till you could come and hush my sighs,

And dry my penitential tears;

But Heaven hath willed it otherwise:

“That I may expiate the wrong

By me inflicted on us both,

When, yet Love’s novice, feebly strong,

I sinned against Love’s sovran troth.

“Now Death, the mirror unto Life,

Shows me that nought should keep apart

Those who, though sore perplexed by strife

‘Twixt Faith and Doubt, are one in heart.

“For Doubt is one with Faith when they,

Who doubt, for Truth’s sake suffering live;

And Faith meanwhile should hope and pray,

Withholding not what Love can give.

“We lead the blind by voice and hand,

And not by light they cannot see;

We are not framed to understand

The How and Why of such as He,

“But natured only to rejoice

At every sound or sign of hope,

And, guided by the still small voice,

In patience through the darkness grope;

“Until our finer sense expands,

And we exchange for holier sight

The earthly help of voice and hands,

And in His light behold the Light.

“Had my poor Love but been more wise,

I should have ta’en you to my breast,

Striving to hush your plaintive cries,

And rock your Reason back to rest.

“But, though alone you now must tread

Where we together should have trod,

In loneliness you may be led,

Through faith in me, to Faith in God.

“With tranquil purpose, fervent mind,

Foster, while you abide on earth,

And humbly proffer to your kind,

The gift assigned to you at birth.

“As in the far-off boyish year

When did your singing voice awake,

Disinterestedly revere

And love it for its own great sake.

“And when life takes autumnal hues,

With fervent reminiscence woo

All the affections of the Muse,

And write the poem lived by you.

“And should, until your days shall end,

You still the lyric voice retain,

With its seductive music blend

A graver note, a loftier strain.

“While buoyant youth and manhood strong

Follow where Siren sounds entice,

The Deities of Love and Song,

Rapture and loveliness, suffice.

“But when decay, and pain, and loss,

Remind one of the Goal forgot,

And we in turn must bear the Cross,

The Pagan Gods can help us not.

“Nor need you then seek, far and near,

More sumptuous shrines on alien strand,

But with domestic mind revere

The Ritual of your native Land.

“The Little Door stands open wide,

And, if you meekly pass therethrough,

Though I no longer kneel inside,

I shall be hovering near to you.

“Farewell! till you shall learn the whole

Of what we here but see in part.

Now I to God commend my soul,

And unto you I leave my heart.”

LVII

I wended up the slope once more

To where the Church stands lone and still,

And passed beneath the Little Door,

My will the subject of Her will.

The sunset rays through pictured pane

Fell, fretted into weft and woof,

On transept, nave, and aisle, to wane

On column cold and vaulted roof.

Within the carven altar screen

Were lilies tall, and white, and fair,

So like to those I late had seen,

It seemed She must be sleeping there.

Mutely I knelt, with bended brow

And shaded eyes, but heart intent,

To learn, should any teach me now,

What Life, and Love, and Sorrow meant.

And there remained until the shroud

Of dusk foretold the coming night;

And then I rose, and prayed aloud,

“Let there be Light! Let there be Light!”