Andromeda and Other Poems Part 16

Oh the fairest flower in the Kaiser's garden Is Rome and Italian land: But it all shall fall to the little Baltung When he shall take lance in hand.

And when he is parting the plunder of Rome, He shall pay for this song of mine, Neither maiden nor land, neither jewel nor gold, But one cup of Italian wine.

Eversley, 1864.

ON THE DEATH OF LEOPOLD, KING OF THE BELGIANS {319}

A King is dead! Another master mind Is summoned from the world-wide council hall.

Ah, for some seer, to say what links behind-- To read the mystic writing on the wall!

Be still, fond man: nor ask thy fate to know.

Face bravely what each G.o.d-sent moment brings.

Above thee rules in love, through weal and woe, Guiding thy kings and thee, the King of kings.

Windsor Castle, November 10, 1865.

EASTER WEEK

(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)

See the land, her Easter keeping, Rises as her Maker rose.

Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, Burst at last from winter snows.

Earth with heaven above rejoices; Fields and gardens hail the spring; Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted Powers to those sweet birds unknown, Use the craft by G.o.d implanted; Use the reason not your own.

Here, while heaven and earth rejoices, Each his Easter tribute bring-- Work of fingers, chant of voices, Like the birds who build and sing.

Eversley, 1867.

DRIFTING AWAY: A FRAGMENT

They drift away. Ah, G.o.d! they drift for ever.

I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea, Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river, Round whom the tide-waifs hang--then drift to sea.

I watch them drift--the old familiar faces, Who fished and rode with me, by stream and wold, Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places, And, ah! the land is rank with churchyard mold.

I watch them drift--the youthful aspirations, Sh.o.r.es, landmarks, beacons, drift alike.

I watch them drift--the poets and the statesmen; The very streams run upward from the sea.

Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven Still fades to night, still blazes into day.

Ah, G.o.d! My G.o.d! Thou wilt not drift away

November 1867.

CHRISTMAS DAY

How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?

A northern Christmas, such as painters love, And kinsfolk, shaking hands but once a year, And dames who tell old legends by the fire?

Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice, Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on fire, And makes the old man merry with the young, Through the short suns.h.i.+ne, through the longer night?

Or southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist, And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch; One twilight, without rise or set of sun, Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats Hawk the pale moths of winter? Welcome then At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower, The rain-pools glittering on the long white roads, And shadows sweeping on from down to down Before the salt Atlantic gale: yet come In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad, Come fair, come foul, 'twill still be Christmas Day.

How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?

To sailors lounging on the lonely deck Beneath the rus.h.i.+ng trade-wind? Or to him, Who by some noisome harbour of the East, Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales, Spoils of the tropic forests; year by year Amid the din of heathen voices, groaning Himself half heathen? How to those--brave hearts!

Who toil with laden loins and sinking stride Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands Toward the peaks which flood the ancient Nile, To free a tyrant's captives? How to those-- New patriarchs of the new-found underworld-- Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns, And count their flocks' increase? To them that day Shall dawn in glory, and solst.i.tial blaze Of full midsummer sun: to them that morn, Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft, Shall tell of nought but summer: but to them, Ere yet, unwarned by carol or by chime, They spring into the saddle, thrills may come From that great heart of Christendom which beats Round all the worlds; and gracious thoughts of youth; Of steadfast folk, who wors.h.i.+p G.o.d at home; Of wise words, learnt beside their mothers' knee; Of innocent faces upturned once again In awe and joy to listen to the tale Of G.o.d made man, and in a manger laid-- May soften, purify, and raise the soul From selfish cares, and growing l.u.s.t of gain, And phantoms of this dream which some call life, Toward the eternal facts; for here or there, Summer or winter, 'twill be Christmas Day.

Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year, What 'tis to be a man: to curb and spurn The tyrant in us; that ign.o.bler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed.--Ah G.o.d!

Are we as creeping things, which have no Lord?

That we are brutes, great G.o.d, we know too well; Apes daintier-featured; silly birds who flaunt Their plumes unheeding of the fowler's step; Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs; Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel, Instead of teeth and claws;--all these we are.

Are we no more than these, save in degree?

No more than these; and born but to compete-- To envy and devour, like beast or herb; Mere fools of nature; puppets of strong l.u.s.ts, Taking the sword, to perish with the sword Upon the universal battle-field, Even as the things upon the moor outside?

The heath eats up green gra.s.s and delicate flowers, The pine eats up the heath, the grub the pine, The finch the grub, the hawk the silly finch; And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey, Eats what he lists; the strong eat up the weak, The many eat the few; great nations, small; And he who cometh in the name of all-- He, greediest, triumphs by the greed of all; And, armed by his own victims, eats up all: While ever out of the eternal heavens Looks patient down the great magnanimous G.o.d, Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice All to Himself? Nay, but Himself to one; Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day, What 'twas to be a man; to give, not take; To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour; To help, not crush; if need, to die, not live.

O blessed day, which givest the eternal lie To self, and sense, and all the brute within; Oh, come to us, amid this war of life; To hall and hovel, come; to all who toil In senate, shop, or study; and to those Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world, Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face Nature's brute powers, and men unmanned to brutes-- Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day.

Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem; The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine: And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day.

Eversley, 1868.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1870 {325}

Speak low, speak little; who may sing While yonder cannon-thunders boom?

Watch, shuddering, what each day may bring: Nor 'pipe amid the crack of doom.'

And yet--the pines sing overhead, The robins by the alder-pool, The bees about the garden-bed, The children dancing home from school.

And ever at the loom of Birth The mighty Mother weaves and sings: She weaves--fresh robes for mangled earth; She sings--fresh hopes for desperate things.

And thou, too: if through Nature's calm Some strain of music touch thine ears, Accept and share that soothing balm, And sing, though choked with pitying tears.