Ionica Part 5

Now, on the stone by Albert laid, We'll build a pile as high as theirs, So sworn to bring our Sovereign aid, If not with war-cries, yet with prayers.

A QUEEN'S VISIT

June 4, 1851

From vale to vale, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, The lady Gloriana pa.s.sed, To view her realms: the south wind bore Her shallop to Belleisle at last.

A quiet mead, where willows bend Above the curving wave, which rolls On slowly crumbling banks, to send Its hard-won spoils to lazy shoals.

Beneath an oak weird eddies play, Where fate was writ for Saxon seer; And yonder park is white with may, Where shadowy hunters chased the deer.

In rows half up the chestnut, perch Stiff-silvered fairies; busy rooks Caw front the elm; and, rung to church, Mute anglers drop their caddised hooks.

They troop between the dark-red walls, When the twin towers give four-fold chimes; And lo! the breaking groups, where falls 'Tim chequered shade of quivering limes.

'They come from field and wharf and street With dewy hair and veined throat, One fluor to tread with reverent feet,-- One hour of rest for ball and boat:

Like swallows gathering for their flight, When autumn whispers, play no more, They check the laugh, with fancies bright Still hovering round the sacred door.

Lo! childhood swelling into seed, Lo! manhood bursting from the bud: Two growths, unlike; yet all agreed To trust the movement of the blood.

They toil at games, and play with books: They love the winner of the race, If only he that prospers looks On prizes with a simple grace.

The many leave the few to choose; They scorn not him who turns aside To woo alone a milder Muse, If s.h.i.+elded by a tranquil pride.

When thought is claimed, when pain is borne, Whate'er is done in this sweet isle, There's none that may not lift his horn, If only lifted with a smile.

So here dwells freedom; nor could she, Who ruled in every clime on earth, Find any spring more fit to be The fountain of her festal mirth.

Elsewhere she sought for lore and art, But hither came for vernal joy: Nor was this all: she smote the heart And woke the hero in the boy.

MOON-SET

Sweet moon, twice rounded in a blithe July, Once down a wandering English stream thou leddest My lonely boat; swans gleamed around; the sky Throbbed overhead with meteors. Now thou sheddest Faint radiance on a cold Arvernian plain, Where I, far severed from that youthful crew, Far from the gay disguise thy witcheries threw On wave and dripping oar, still own thy reign, Travelling with thee through many a sleepless hour.

Now shrink, like my weak will: a sterner power Empurpleth yonder hills beneath thee piled, Hills, where Caesarian sovereignty was won On high basaltic levels blood-defiled, The Druid moonlight quenched beneath the Roman sun.

AFTER READING "MAUD"

September, 1855

Twelve years ago, if he had died, His critic friends had surely cried: "Death does us wrong, the fates are cross; Nor will this age repair the loss.

Fine was the promise of his youth; Time would have brought him deeper truth.

Some earnest of his wealth he gave, Then hid his treasures in the grave."

And proud that they alone on earth Perceived what might have been his worth, They would have kept their leader's name Linked with a fragmentary fame.

Forsooth the beech's knotless stem, If early felled, were dear to them.

But the fair tree lives on, and spreads Its scatheless boughs above their heads, And they are pollarded by cares, And give themselves religious airs, And grow not, whilst the forest-king Strikes high and deep from spring to spring.

So they would have his branches rise In theoretic symmetries; They see a twist in yonder limb, The foliage not precisely trim; Some gnarled roughness they lament, Take credit for their discontent, And count his flaws, serenely wise With motes of pity in their eyes; As if they could, the prudent fools, Adjust such live-long growth to rules, As if so strong a soul could thrive Fixed in one shape at thirty-five.

Leave him to us, ye good and sage, Who stiffen in your middle age.

Ye loved him once, but now forbear; Yield him to those who hope and dare, And have not yet to forms consigned A rigid, ossifying mind.

One's feelings lose poetic flow Soon after twenty-seven or so; Professionizing moral men Thenceforth admire what pleased them then; The poems bought in youth they read, And say them over like their creed.

All autumn crops of rhyme seem strange; Their intellect resents the change.

They cannot follow to the end Their more susceptive college-friend: He runs from field to field, and they Stroll in their paddocks making hay: He's ever young, and they get old; Poor things, they deem him over-bold: What wonder, if they stare and scold?

A SONG

i.

Oh, earlier shall the rosebuds blow, In after years, those happier years, And children weep, when we lie low, Far fewer tears, far softer tears.

ii.

Oh, true shall boyish laughter ring, Like tinkling chimes in kinder times!

And merrier shall the maiden sing: And I not there, and I not there.

iii.

Like lightning in the summer night Their mirth shall be, so quick and free; And oh! the flash of their delight I shall not see, I may not see.

iv.

In deeper dream, with wider range, Those eyes shall s.h.i.+ne, but not on mine: Unmoved, unblest, by worldly change, The dead must rest, the dead shall rest.

A STUDY OF BOYHOOD

So young, and yet so worn with pain!

No sign of youth upon that stooping head, Save weak half-curls, like beechen boughs that spread With up-turned edge to catch the hurrying rain;

Such little lint-white locks, as wound About a mother's finger long ago, When he was blither, not more dear, for woe Was then far off, and other sons stood round.

And she has wept since then with him Watching together, where the ocean gave To her child's counted breathings wave for wave, Whilst the heart fluttered, and the eye grew dim.