Andromeda and Other Poems Part 8

The Judge is set, the doom begun!

Who shall stay it?

On Torridge, May 1849.

THE DAY OF THE LORD

The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand: Its storms roll up the sky: The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold; All dreamers toss and sigh; The night is darkest before the morn; When the pain is sorest the child is born, And the Day of the Lord at hand.

Gather you, gather you, angels of G.o.d-- Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth; Come! for the Earth is grown coward and old, Come down, and renew us her youth.

Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love, Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above, To the Day of the Lord at hand.

Gather you, gather you, hounds of h.e.l.l-- Famine, and Plague, and War; Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule, Gather, and fall in the snare!

Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave, Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave, In the Day of the Lord at hand.

Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold, While the Lord of all ages is here?

True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of G.o.d, And those who can suffer, can dare.

Each old age of gold was an iron age too, And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do, In the Day of the Lord at hand.

On the Torridge, Devons.h.i.+re, September 10, 1849.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve, I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary-- 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.

How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?

Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain, Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'

Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing, And a voice within cried--'Listen!--Christmas carols even here!

Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing.

Blind! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.

Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'

Eversley, 1849.

THE OUBIT {260}

It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang, A f.e.c.kless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang-- 'My Minnie bad me bide at hame until I won my wings; I show her soon my soul's aboon the warks o' creeping things.'

This f.e.c.kless hairy oubit cam' hirpling by the linn, A swirl o' wind cam' doun the glen, and blew that oubit in: Oh when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose, And tigg'd him a' to pieces sma', by head and tail and toes.

Tak' warning then, young poets a', by this poor oubit's shame; Though Pegasus may nicher loud, keep Pegasus at hame.

Oh haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a' the Muses woo; For critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak' their meals o' you.

Eversley, 1851.

THE THREE FISHERS

Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Away to the West as the sun went down; Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And there's little to earn, and many to keep, Though the harbour bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown.

But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the s.h.i.+ning sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep; And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

Eversley, June 25, 1851.

SONNET

Oh, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare's self!

No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest Above the treasures of that perfect breast, Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars Through which thy soul awes ours: yet thou art bound-- O waste of nature!--to a craven hound; To shameless l.u.s.t, and childish greed of pelf; Athene to a Satyr: was that link Forged by The Father's hand? Man's reason bars The bans which G.o.d allowed.--Ay, so we think: Forgetting, thou hadst weaker been, full blest, Than thus made strong by suffering; and more great In martyrdom, than throned as Caesar's mate.

Eversley, 1851.

MARGARET TO DOLCINO

Ask if I love thee? Oh, smiles cannot tell Plainer what tears are now showing too well.

Had I not loved thee, my sky had been clear: Had I not loved thee, I had not been here, Weeping by thee.

Ask if I love thee? How else could I borrow Pride from man's slander, and strength from my sorrow?

Laugh when they sneer at the fanatic's bride, Knowing no bliss, save to toil and abide Weeping by thee.

Andernach on the Rhine, August 1851.

DOLCINO TO MARGARET